


The SpellSlinger

by 1Kamiro7



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25835542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1Kamiro7/pseuds/1Kamiro7
Summary: Paris Craft, the SpellSlinger, one of the most skilled witches in the Boiling isles, and the most wanted one too.Also, she's a human.With a mysterious past in her tracks and enemies on her heels, Luz Noceda will have to try her hardest to help her friend slash mentor. [AU retelling of the Owl House][Also on fanfiction!]
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 17
Kudos: 51





	1. A Human and Her Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Yes you may request chapters

“Welcome to, the owl house.” Eda clicked her fingers, illuminating the interior of her abode. “Where I hide away from the pressures of modern life. Also, the cops. Also, ex-boyfriends.”

“Whoa,” Luz gazed in awe, “Do you live here all alone?”

“Well actually, I have roommates.” Eda folded her arms as the house rumbled from large footsteps.

“ **WHO DARES INTRUDE APON I? T** H **E K** i **n** g o **f** demons?!” A voice approached, getting higher pitched as it grew closer. Finally, a small dog-like demon with a skull on its head and collar around its neck.

Luz gasped as she blushed at the cute thing in front of her. “¡Ay, que lindo!” Luz exclaimed “Eda, he's so cute! Who's a widdle guy? Who's a widdle guy? Is it you? Is it you?”

“No! I don't know who your little guy is! Eda, who is this monster?” King asked in terror, trying to push Luz away.

“Oh, this is Luz, the human. She's here to help us with our little... situation.” Eda explained as she pulled Luz away, who kept trying to make grabs for the small demon.

“Oh, Hooray.” King cheered.

“Wait, wait, wait. I don't like the sound of this ‘situation’.” Luz said, voicing her worry.

“Just... let me explain.” Eda said as she drew a magical circle of light that presented a picture. “King was once a mighty king of demons until his crown of power was stolen, and he became... this.”

“You mean this little bundle of joy?”

"The crown is being held by the evil Warden Wrath and locked away behind a magical force field that only a human can break through...” Eda let the projection fall. “A human like you. If you help us retrieve his crown, we'll send you back to your realm. So whaddya say? Plus, who could say no to this cute face?” Eda asked, lifting up King by the Skull.

“No! Please don't encourage her! Aah!” King protested.

“I mean, we're kinda your only way home.” Eda let king drop.

“So, I don't really have a choice, do I?” Luz asked.

“Nope. Now, we've got no time to lose.” Eda declared.

King squeaked his rubber ducky. “Soon, Mr Ducky, we shall drink the fear of those who mocked us!”

Luz turned back to Eda. “So, where are we going?

“Somewhere super fun.” Eda smiled.

/

After their adventure to the Conformatorium, Eda, Luz and King had returned to the Owl House. There, Eda had kept to her word and created a door for Luz to go home, back to the human realm.

Luz wasn’t too intent on leaving though, her alternative was a boring summer camp after all. So, as she stopped before the door, and looked up into the mirror behind it, a lightbulb went off in her head.

“Okay. I know you got your head cut off, and we started some kind of prison riot, but this was the most fun I've ever had.” Luz said as Eda and King watched her. “I don't fit in at home. You don't fit in here. If I stay, we could not fit in together. I'm not going back to summer camp.” Luz crumpled the camp brochure.

“What's summer camp? What are we talking about here?” Eda chuckled as she made hand gestures, confused.

“I want to stay and become a witch like you and Azura,” Luz announced.

“What? All right, that's crazy. Only one human has ever been able to do magic, and she’s been through more than any of us combined.”

“Maybe that's because they haven't tried,” Luz argued. “If you teach me to become a witch, I'll do anything you want.”

“Let her stay!” King cheered. “She can make us snacks!”

“Well, I could use another set of hands keeping this goofball out of the cupboards.” Eda picked up King. “All right. I'll teach you how to be a witch. But you have to work for me before you learn any spells.” Eda offered a handshake. “Deal?”

Luz passed up the formal handshake to squeeze Eda and King in a bear hug.

“Too tight! Too tight!”

“What's going on?”

“Just accept it,” Luz told the two as she continued hugging. Their attention was drawn to the door by Hooty’s muffled speaking.

“To pass by me, you must answer my riddles three!” He spoke. The was an exclamation of pain from him before another voice spoke.

“We do this every time, Hooty. Just let me in already.”

“Fine. Jeez, buzzkill.”

The door then swung open to reveal another person, taller than Luz but shorter than Eda. The most striking thing about them was the plague doctor mask they wore, sickly green accents running across it like scars. A hooded brown trenchcoat hung over them, concealing most of their figure, the only visible feature was the well-worn combat boots, and a bandolier with rectangular satchels budging along it.

“Eda, who’s this?” the person asked, voice still muffled by their mask.

“This is Luz, she’s from the human realm. She wants to stay here and learn magic.” Eda explained. The person sighed. The reached up and drew back their hood, revealing striking ruby hair. Their hands then went to the mask and took it off to display a female’s features, and rounded ears.

Luz gasped; they were a human!

“Greetings, Luz, I am Paris Craft. A pleasure to meet you.” The girl introduced herself, mask still in hands. Luz studied their features a bit closer. This person didn’t seem to be much older than herself, one or two years at most.

“Whoa...” Luz gasped, unaware of the blush spreading across her cheeks. Shaking her head to focus, she heard Eda speak to her.

“This, kid, is the only human to ever use magic. She may be only 17, but she’s the quickest damn witch you’d ever meet. It’s why they call her, ‘The SpellSlinger’. She one of the most wanted people in the Boiling isles.” Eda explained. Luz danced on the spot and turned to Paris.

“That’s amazing!” Luz cried, “Will you teach me magic too?” Luz asked the older teen. After several seconds of staring at Luz with an impassive look, she answered.

“No.”

“Aww, why not?”

“Eda agreed to teach you. My magic isn’t something to take as lightly as the kind Eda will teach you.” Paris stepped forward and put a hand on Luz’s shoulder, blank face not shifting. “But I do look forward to having you about. It will be nice to have someone a bit... calmer.” She began to walk away. “Good luck, Luz. You’ll need it in the Demon Realm.”

It was as Paris exited the doorway that Luz’s eyes were distracted by the back of Paris’ cloak.

It was a large, golden embroidery of a circle with many symbols inside it.

Like a glyph.


	2. Repercussions

**I** **love how tight-knit this community is at the moment.**

* * *

“So, King, what kind of Chosen One should I be?” Luz asked the small Demon.

While being sent into town to deliver potions for her new Witch mentor Eda, Luz had met a wizard that had told her, get this, The Chosen One!

Luz was ecstatic. Not only did she get to a magical world, learn magic, but now she was the chosen one?! It was all her fantasy novel dreams come true!

“Huh? What?” King yawned, not paying attention.

“Should I be full of optimism and goodness, like the Good Witch Azura?” Luz head up her Azura book, moving it across her face. “Or should I be like a bad girl Chosen One with black nail polish and a mysteriously withdrawn attitude? ‘I act like I don't care, but I secretly do.’”

“Oh, you guys talking about bad girls?” Eda asked as she and Paris appeared, Eda, holding a disembodied blue arm. “Wait... What’s going on?”

“Oh, hi Paris!” Luz greeted her fellow human. “Didn’t see you this morning, what have you been doing?”

“Mainly treason and grand larceny,” Paris answered with a completely straight face.

“Ok...”

King sighed. “Can you guys tell Luz how dumb wizards are?”

“Ugh, wizards are the worst,” Eda said as she swung the blue arm around and making Paris and King duck to avoid it. “Never trust a man in casual drapery. Why?”

Paris narrowed her eyes. “A wizard wants you to do something for them, don’t they?”

“That’s right! How’d you guess?” Luz asked, excitement still brimming.

“Because that’s all wizards want, somebody else to do something for them,” Paris answered with a scowl.

“So, what did this wizard ask you to do anyway?” Eda asked, setting the blue arm down.

“Your wizard client told Luz... she was a‐‐ was a Chosen One!” King answered between laughter.

“Wait, wait, Luz?” Eda asked, snickering in disbelief. She and King then broke out into full-blown laughter, rolling around. Paris didn’t join them, looking sympathetically at Luz, who was hiding an embarrassed blush behind her book.

“He even gave her a map!” King managed to squeak out.

“Let me see this map,” Eda said, getting up and wiping her eyes. Luz handed Eda the map, which she unfurled and read, along with Paris looking over her shoulder. “you didn’t think this was real, did you?”

“What?”

“I’ve seen three copies just like it,” Paris told Luz, “All of them fake, too. Led to nowhere.”

“And if there were some ‘Celestial Staff’, I would have stolen it ages ago,” Eda added. “Ah, don't worry. Couple more months here and you won't look like such a mark.” Eda comforted, affectionately rustling Luz’s hair.

“Can I have some time alone?” Luz asked, looking away. Eda shrugged and walked out of the room, followed by King. Paris stopped by the door and turned back to look at Luz.

“Don’t worry, things will get better, just, give it time, ok?” Paris gave a small smile. Luz felt a bit better, returning the smile before Paris left, shutting the door behind herself.

* * *

Paris Walked into the Living room, where Eda and King already were.

“Okay Eda, we need to talk,” Paris said, standing in front of the witch with her arms folded.

Eda groaned. “Is it about Luz?”

“Yeas it’s about Luz!” Paris exclaimed. “What were you thinking?!”

“I was thinking that we could get King’s crown back,” Eda said, flicking away some gunk she had pulled from her ear.

“I could have done that! I said I’d be back!”

“You were gone for two weeks, how was I supposed to know you weren’t dead?”

Paris stomped over to a table and picked up a glass ball full of red smoke. “This Eda! This! I gave you this and said: ‘If this ever turns black, it means I'm dead.” Paris waved the ball in front of Eda’s face. “Does this look black to you? Are you losing your sight in your old age?”

“Okay, okay,” Eda slapped Paris’ hand away. “So what was I supposed to do? Just send her away with her knowing there was a whole other world out there that she would never get to see?”

“Yes!” Paris threw her hands in the air. “God knows if **he** finds out about her. It’s was dangerous enough having me here, but now two humans?! Luz is untrained, and **he’ll** use that against her!”

“Then help me train her!” Eda yelled back.

“And make her an even bigger target?! The only spell I’d teach her is how to conceal her return to the human realm!” Paris took a breath and calmed herself. “I’ve been thwarting his plans for over half my life, I don’t want all my efforts to be in vain, just because you couldn’t be patient.”

Eda shrunk at that. She knew how much what Paris had been doing these past thirteen years meant to her. And she messed could have messed it up with one stupid action. Hell! She even brought Luz to the Conformetorium, ripe for **his** picking.

“I'm sorry,” Eda said, looking away. Paris sighed.

“Just promise to keep her safe, Eda. I can’t let her get close to me; it would be too dangerous. For everyone.”

“Okay.” Eda nodded.

Paris seemed satisfied and picked up her mask from the nearby bench.

“There’s going to be a ritual later today, I'm off to stop it. Keep Luz out of trouble.”

And with that, Paris walked out the door.

* * *

Eda, meanwhile, had gone upstairs to check on Luz.

“Hey, Luz?” Eda asked, opening the door. Inside, the room was empty, and the window was open.

“Aww shit. Paris is gonna kill me. HOOTY!”


	3. Spellwatch

Fortunately for Eda, she was able to find Luz before she got into, too much, trouble. That trouble included a puppeteer demon using Luz as bait for her. But still, she was able to manage to defeat it, with help from Luz. This meant that Paris was none the wiser to Luz’s potential danger.

It was a few days later, and the four Owl House residents were standing on the beach, looking up at a giant bloated Trash Slug.

“Well, Luz... did you ever in your life think you'd see something as breathtaking as this?” Eda asked, nudging the newer human.

“I don’t like this.” Luz shook her head, repulsed at what she saw before her.

“Yes, it doesn't get much more inspiring than the trash slug. It makes a home, a life from what others have thrown by the wayside. Until, blam, it gets blasted by a wave one day and croaks from all the salt. And then we get to sell the stuff it ate.” Eda said, taking up a pickaxe.

Paris sighed. She had forgone her usual ‘mysterious cloak’ as Luz would call it and was now in a scarlet tunic, and a leather satchel which Luz only caught glimpses of what was inside.

“Eda gets like this every time one kicks the bucket near the house,” Paris explained to Luz. “Believe it or not, a lot of people in the Isles will pay top dollar for the stench alone. Weather they use it for other means, or just like the smell.”

Luz nodded before voicing a question that was on her mind.

“Hey, Paris, what’s that on your back?” Luz pointed at the object vaguely resembling a bulky gun that was strapped to Paris’ back.

“Oh, this?” Paris took the ‘gun’ off her back and held it in front of herself, “I call it a hex launcher. Helps gives my spells a little extra range and power.”

“Whoa...” Luz stared in awe.

“Hey, apprentice!” Eda yelled to Luz from the trash slug, “Get over here and help me with this!”

“Please don't make me.” Luz visibly cringed.

“Aw, come on, Luz. It's not every day you get to go to the dump and pick apart a garbage carcass.” King, who had been mostly silent up till now, sarcastically quipped.

“Ah, nuts to all three of you.” Eda scowled at them before going back to digging in the humongous carcass.

“So, Eda...” Luz began, sidestepping to avoid a glass that Eda carelessly threw over her shoulder. “What if we tried some new lessons for my apprenticeship? Like...” Luz then dodged a bike “Read ancient scrolls or mix together potions, or...”

“Ugh,” Eda interrupted, disgust in her voice. “That sounds like a bunch of magic school stuff.”

“Wait. Is there a magic school here? Like, winding towers, cute uniforms, dark plots that threaten your life kind of magic school?” Luz asked, getting excited.

“Yes, no, definitely, ...maybe,” Paris answered. “The Hexside school of Magics and Demonics teaches young witches the magic of their tracks.”

“Do you go there?” Luz asked Paris. Paris cringed and looked away.

“Not... technically. But I have a few ways of knowing what’s going on in there.”

“Bah!” Eda interrupted once again. “Best you stay away from that place. They force you to learn magic the "proper" way. But magic isn't proper. It's wild and unpredictable. And that's why it's so beautiful. I didn't finish school and look at me! Who wouldn't envy where I am right now?”

Luz looked sadly away, not agreeing with Eda’s words. Paris saw this and put a hand on her shoulder, giving a small smile when Luz looked at her.

“Uh... Hey, here's a lesson.” Eda walked over to Luz, having seen her hesitation. “A great witch is resourceful, like this.” She took Luz’s hand and stuck it in a pool of the slug’s spilled fluids. After wading in it for second or two, she pulled her hand out and something with it.

“Oh, hey. Greasy slime ball.” Luz looked at the ball with unease.

“Use your slime ball wisely, young witch.” Eda clasped her hands around Luz. “Now! Back at it! We'll hit the stink nodes first.”

“Actually, if it's okay, I think I'll head home and look at pictures of animals that are still alive.” Luz kept backing up until she reached King. “Love you, King.” She said, tickling his belly. “Bye Paris! Don’t to anything cool without me!” and with that Luz disappeared into the forest.

“Well Eda, I’m impressed.” Paris turned back to the senior witch. “You are doing well in putting her off teaching her magic.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Eda asked, stopping her trash picking.

“Y’know, doing all this as an excuse to not teach Luz magic for as long as possible.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Eda said. “What? Do you think I’m just going to leave a valuable trash slug for somebody else to get?”

“So, you’re not avoiding teaching Luz magic?” Paris raised an eyebrow. “Okay, that’s low Eda, even for you.”

“What? I thought you didn’t want me to teach Luz magic.”

“I... I don’t know.” Paris sat down on a decerped chair. “I don’t want her to become something that can jeopardize everyone’s safety if she’s not careful. But I really want her to follow her dream.” Paris looked Eda in the eyes. “I can see she’s had a tough time fitting in. The way she tries to so badly to please others, I can see the happiness in her eyes when she does something right. I-I don’t want to stop her from doing what makes her happy, because if I stop a person from being happy, aren’t my own deeds that of a hypocrite?” Paris sighed and slumped in the chair. “What should I do Eda?”

“Well,” Eda set her pick down and moved over to Paris, “What do you think you should do?”

Paris turned her head to the place where Luz disappeared and narrowed her eyes.

“I’m going to do something I’ll regret, aren’t I?”

“The best of us do, Paris. The best of us do.”

* * *

Paris Luz into the forest, using a tracking hound spell glyph to magically see Luz’s footsteps. She wandered further and further into the forest until the sound of rumbling. Parting the shrubbery, Paris saw a young, green-haired witch with glasses and vines whipping around them standing over Luz. Paris reached over her shoulder and drew her hex launcher, loading it with a gravity glyph and preparing to jump into the fray. That was until the girl realized what she was doing and stopped.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no! I'm so sorry!” The witch apologized as she removed the vines from Luz’s legs.

“It's okay. The thorns only went through a few layers of skin.” Luz dismissed. The witch leaned in close to get a good look at Luz.

“So, circly.” She observed. Luz squeaked as she covered her ears with her whole arms. “You're human! This is astounding!” the witch exclaimed, inspecting Luz. “A human on the Boiling Isles! How'd you get here? What are you doing here?” The person continued as Paris parted the bushes, her plague mask on.

This person had recognised Luz as a human. Not many individuals of the boiling isles knew what a human actually looked like, so if this person knew, this was bad.

A bell rang in the distance that caused the young witch from inspecting Luz and step away. “Uh, I'm sorry. I can't stay. I have to go disappoint my teacher. It was nice to meet you, human.” The witch began walking away.

Paris let out a sigh on relief. Whoever they were, they seemed nice enough, she wasn’t going to do anything malicious.

“Wait!” Luz chased after her. “I'm Luz. And you're Willow, right? What you did with that flower and those plants, it was... wow.”

“Thanks, but... I'm not even supposed to be doing plant magic. My parents put me in the abomination track at school.” The witch, Willow, said glumly.

Paris scratched her chin. What the girl had just said made no sense to SpellSlinger. From the powerful plant magic without spell circles, the kind and placid demeanour, everything about this ‘Willow’ screamed Dryad.

Dryads, children of the forest, were traditionally very powerful witches but they were primarily restricted to plant magic, just like ifriti were restricted to fire magic and syrens were water. Anybody with eyes knew she would prosper in the Hexside plant track, her talents were wasted anywhere else.

“...and you can get me into magic school. It's fiendishly clever.” Luz finished whatever she was saying. Paris snapped to attention, seeming to have zoned out. Wait! What was Luz doing?!

“What?!” Willow exclaimed.

‘Thank you!’ Paris thought, ‘Listen to the girl, Luz! Don’t do this!’

“I saw that girl's thing. It's just chunks of stuff that talks weird. I'm chunks of stuff, and I talk weird!” Luz continued.

“That's true.” Willow giggled. “Okay. It's a deal. Luz.”

‘No! Luz what have you done?!’ Paris gripped her head, ‘You just corrupted a perfectly sensible person!’

“This is a great plan!” Luz shook hands with Willow, getting their hands stuck together.

‘No, it isn’t Luz!’ Paris screamed internally.

* * *

Paris tailed Willow and Luz all the way to Hexside, making sure to keep out of sight. Even if this was a horrible plan that was destined to fail miserably, Paris needed to make sure she was there to bail out Luz when it did.

Willow stopped to get some books out of her mouth-locker when a shorter, and assumably younger, witch boy bumped into her holding a human-world magazine.

“Hmm?” Willow turned to see the boy who bumped into her.

“Willow, you would not believe humans.” The boy said, still not looking up from his magazine.

“Humans? Psh. I haven't seen any. What?” Willow stammered. Paris shook her head. This girl did not do well under pressure.

“Did you know that humans nail barbed wire to their kids' teeth?” the boy showed them a picture of braces in the magazine. “But why? Maybe to make them magnetic.”

“Actually, it's for storing treats,” Luz spoke up from inside the cauldron she was sitting in. Paris facepalmed.

“Okay, Augustus.” Willow set her books down and pointed at the boy, Augustus. “I'm gonna tell you something. But you have to be cool.”

“I can be spool. I mean, cool.” Augustus stammered.

Paris moved back around the corner. She recognised the boy’s name, realizing he was the president of Hexside’s horribly misinformed Human Appreciation Club. He was harmless, if not excitably and naive. Luz was still safe.

“Hey Paris.” Somebody said from behind Paris.

Paris turned to find two people standing there, one boy and one girl, both with green hair, a mole on opposite sides of their faces, and illusion track uniforms.

“Oh, hi Ed. Hi Em.” Paris greeted the twins back. “Haven’t been up to too much mischief, have you?”

All three shared a hearty laugh at the obviously redundant question. If you looked up mischief in a boiling isles dictionary, you’d see the Blight twins’ pictures, literally!

“What are you doing in Hexside?” Emira asked. “Thought you had all those scrying glyphs to show you what’s going on.”

“I needed to keep a more... practical, eye on things.” Paris sighed. “Last week, a new human came to the Demon Realm, her name’s Luz.”

Ed and Em gasped. Few were privy to Paris’ plans, but she and the twins had been close friends for years now, helping one-another out on occasion.

“Does ‘You Know Who’ know about her?” Edric whispered. Paris shook her head.

“I hope not.” She answered. “Look, I’m here now because Luz thought is was a wise idea to pose as somebody’s abomination project so they could pass, and I’m here to make sure she’s safe when it inevitably fails.”

“Hmm. Hmm.” The twins nodded their heads.

“The bell went while you were talking,” Emira told Paris, who quickly looked around the corner to find Luz, Willow and Augustus gone.

“God damn it!” Paris dropped to her knees and gripped her head in dismay as the twins looked on.

“...You really need to stop hyperfixating on things, P.”

* * *

Paris and the twins’ attempts to find where Luz had gone came up fruitless, so the three resorted to sitting atop the school roof, taking turns using Paris’ hex launcher.

“So...” Edric began as he passed the launcher to his sister, “How are you going to find Luz now?”

“Eh. She’ll get into some sort of trouble, and we’ll just know.” Paris shrugged, tossing a repulsion glyph round to Emira. Emira took aim and fired the spell into a target they had created the last year, sending the pirdies sitting on it flying.

“Bullseye!” Emira pumped her fist before turning back to Paris and Edric. “How do you know she’s going to get into trouble?”

“In the week Luz has been here, she’s broken into the Conformitorium, and unwittingly fell for a puppeteering demon.” Paris took the launcher and loaded a shadow glyph. “Eda doesn’t think I know, but I do.” Paris fired, the glyph splitting into six different projectiles that all hit the target.

“Are you going to teach her glyph magic?” Edric asked as he took another turn with the launcher.

Paris groaned as she flopped back on the roof. “I don’t know. At first, I thought it was a horrible idea, but now I see just how much this place means to her. She just... fits, y’know? And, I don’t think she got that back home. So, I don’t know. What do you guys think I should do?”

“Well, **he’s** going to come after her weather we like it or not, so maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Emira suggested.

“Yeah! Teach her spells!” Edric cheered on. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Ironically, Edric had tipped the hex launcher downwards, allowing the glyph to tumble out and fall off the roof. The three friends poked their heads over the edge to watch, seeing the glyph connect to the ground close to a group of people, detonating and spreading fire everywhere. Paris and the twins silently drew their heads back in, ignoring the screams coming from below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paris' Hex launcher is modelled after an m79 grenade launcher, and the glyph ammo like it's pill grenades.  
> Don't forget to tell me what you think!


	4. What Magic Means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a short little chapter with a nice Paris/Luz interaction.

Once Paris and the twins had successfully evaded detection, it wasn't long before Luz had caused trouble and Paris had to bail her out. Now on their walk home, Luz was frantically apologizing to Paris.

"Paris, I am so, so, so, sorry." Luz pleaded with her hands clasped.

"Luz... you need to think about these things." Paris pinched her brow. "What if I wasn't there to help you? Even if Willow did a really great job."

"...How do know Willow's name?"

"I was watching you until you two met Gus."

"Ah. Yeah, that tracks."

Paris sighed again. "And now, I'm going to have to make more spell rounds for my gun."

The two finished walking back to the Owl House in comfortable silence to find Eda out the front, holding King.

"EEEDAAAAA!" Luz ran and hugged Eda as soon as she saw her.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey! What is this? Ugh!" Eda was unsure how to respond to the human 'hugging' her. "I never understand when you do this."

"Eda! Eda! Eda! Your lesson worked! Keeping junk in my pocket saved my life! Or, at least prolonged it enough for Paris to save it..."

"Yep, definitely that one," Eda said, looking over to Paris, who had her arms folded and a smile on her face.

Luz then suddenly gasped "My new friends! They're in danger!"

"Luz!" Willow called suddenly appearing and running towards the younger human with Gus in tow. The reached Luz and embraced her, which Luz gladly returned.

"Seriously, what is that?" Eda asked Paris.

"I'll tell you later," Paris whispered back.

"You won't believe it, Luz. Everything is perfect now!" Willow pulled away, her hands still on Luz's shoulders. Gus stood to the side to allow the two to speak.

"You're right! I don't believe it!" Luz agreed with Willow's rhetorical statement, a smile still on her face.

"Principal Bump was so impressed by my plant work he's switching me to the plant magic track! Look!" Willow stepped back and did a twirl, her uniform's sleeves and stockings changing from a purple to a green.

"Yes!" Luz giggled, "Whoo! Oh. What about Amity?"

"Last we saw, she was asking Bump if today could count as extra credit," Gus answered.

"Wait, Amity?" Paris asked, stepping into the conversation, "As in; Amity Blight?"

"Yeah, do you know her?" Luz asked.

Paris laughed jovially. "Her older siblings are my best friends."

"Huh. Small world." Luz smiled. Willow nudged Luz.

"Luz, are you going to introduce us?"

"Ah right!" Luz jumped. "Willow, Gus, this is Paris Craft, my teacher Eda the Owl Lady, and King the... king, of demons. Luz, Eda, King, these are my new friends, Willow and Gus."

"Sup?"

"Quiver before me!"

"A Pleasure."

Luz leant over to her friends. "Paris is actually, in fact, the SpellSlinger," She whispered.

"Luz!" Paris scolded. "You can't tell people that! Now I have to kill your friends."

"Wait what?!" All three of them exclaimed.

"Just kidding." Paris giggled. They let out a sigh of relief.

"Well, all's well that ends well then." Luz put her hands on her hips in confidence.

...

"Luz you've been banned from Hexside."

* * *

Paris was hunching over a bench in her workshop, an annexed part of the Owl house she and Eda had added. Ever so carefully working on her newest project, she scratched runes and glyphs on the metal surface, unable to make one mistake less lose all her work.

Paris set down the scratching hook she usually had for making hex launcher ammo and wiped her brow. It was hard work doing what she was doing, but if this pulled through it may just give Paris her greatest edge yet.

Just as she was about to pick up her scalpel to perform some of the finer lines, somebody spoke behind her.

"Hey, Paris!" Luz greeted loudly, startling Paris. Paris was so glad she wasn't actually working on her project.

"Luz! What the hell? How'd you get in here?" Paris interrogated. Luz blinked and pointed to the open door behind her.

"I just, walked through the door?" Luz answered unsurely. Paris dragged her hand down her face, realizing what had happened.

"I enchanted that door to stop people from entering," Paris explained, "But since you aren't magic, it just let you through." Paris got up and began pushing Luz to the door.

"Aww, but I want to know what you're doing!" Luz complained.

"I'm working," Paris answered flatly. She saw Luz's puppy eyes and groaned. "I'm working on something _secret_ , okay? I'll show you when I'm done. But until then, why don't you see if Eda will teach you some magic?"

"She was teaching me a light spell, but she fell asleep. All I got was that bigger circles make bigger spells, and that I need a magic bile sac to..." Luz cut herself off with a gasp. "You don't have a bile sac!" Luz pointed at Paris who pursed her lips and looked side to side. "If you don't have a bile sac, you must know how to do magic without it!"

"Okay, okay, Luz. No, I do not have a bile sac. Yes, I do know how to do magic without one. But I'm not going to tell you how to cast spells."

Luz's face fell. A pang of guilt shot through Paris seeing that she had crushed Luz's hopes like that. Paris sighed, knowing she was about to do something she'd regret, and put a hand on Luz's shoulder.

"Hey, Luz, tell you what. If you can figure out how to do the spell Eda was teaching you, I'll help you learn my magic." Paris offered. Luz's face lit up again.

"You got yourself a deal! I promise Paris that I'll..."

"Yeah, that's great, but I need to get back to work." Paris tapped a glove she was wearing, and Luz levitated out of the room as the door slammed behind her. Paris smiled softly before turning back to her workbench, finally picking up the scalpel and getting back to work on the rune.

* * *

**A few hours later...**

"Easy does it... eeeeeeeeasyyyyy dooooooes iiiiiiit..." Paris said to herself as she carefully lowered the pulsating green crystal into her project. This was it; she was almost done. Paris almost had it when...

"PARIS!" Luz slammed the door to her study open. In her surprise, Paris dropped the crystal.

***BOOM***

The crystal exploded, the windows of Paris' study were blasted outward and many glass phials broke.

"Luz!" Paris coughed as the smoke cleared, "What is going on? Are you okay? Are we under attack?"

"Huh?" Luz also coughed. "No, I just wanted to show you I learnt that light spell!"

Paris blinked once. Then twice. Then she slapped her forehead.

"Luz! That explosion could have seriously hurt you! You need to knock before coming in here!" Paris chastised. Luz looked away apologetically.

"I'm sorry." She said meekly. Paris sighed and shook her head.

"It's just months worth of time, effort and materials gone."

"Months?! You lost all of that because I was so stupid?! I-I'll help you get the stuff you need, a-and help you make whatever it is you..."

Paris held up a hand to stop Luz's rambling. "Luz, it's fine, I'm just glad you're alright. Plus, anyway,"

Paris reached down into a nearby box and pulled out a thick iron bracer that had glowing red lines across it.

"This is the exact reason why I always make in twos."

"Whoa... what is it?" Luz asked. Paris pulled up another chair for Luz to sit beside her and inspect the bracer at the workbench.

"First, show me your light spell."

Luz placed the pad of paper she was holding onto the bench and drew thee glyph for light and tapped it. The paper crumpled up and morphed into a floating ball of light. Paris nodded.

"Good work Luz, now to tell you about how us humans do magic." Paris cleared her throat.

* * *

" _As you know, witches, unlike humans, have a bile sac attached to their heart that allows them to perform magic through spell circles. The sac itself doesn't actually have any magic but acts more as a conductor to allow witches to manipulate magic._

_Without this crucial component, humans are unable to easily manipulate magic like witches do. So, we must resort to glyphs, the other source of conducting magic. Glyphs by themselves are more limited in their conductivity, needing different glyphs for different spell types, but they can be more expandable."_

_Paris showed the glove on her hand_

" _This glove has the glyph for a telekinesis spell on it, I used it on you earlier. While the base glyph is that of telekinesis, I expanded upon it, making it so I could target a different object and so that it wouldn't consume the glove when cast. It wasn't an easy or short task, but now that it's done, it should last me quite a while._

_I've sewn many different glyphs into articles of my clothing, like my cape and its flight glyph, or my mask and its glammer glyph. The language of glyphs may be limited at the beginning, the more you learn about it, the more expansive it becomes._

_I won't teach you new spells, or how to find them, but I will teach you about how to make those spells your own, and truly connect to magic..._

* * *

Luz listened, rapped to what Paris was telling her. She barely understood what the seasoned human witch was saying, but it made her excited all the same.

"But you still haven't told me what this is." Luz held up the bracer. Paris quickly took it off her and rested it on the bench, hand on it.

"This, Luz, is my next step in magic for humans. If this works, I may never need to spend time writing glyph cards ever again. This bracer with project glyphs for me on to cards for use, and a propelling glyph will fire them for me."

Paris took a deep breath. "Ever since I came to the isles, I didn't just want to do magic, I wanted to understand it. Why it exists, how we connect to it, why most witches think they should limit themselves." Paris spat that last one bitterly. "This may not be the furthest I've delved into those questions, but it is a question, nonetheless. Now, I wait to see what the answer is." Paris put the bracer on, the red lines glowing brighter, matching her hair. She looked at Luz.

"Don't just be a witch, Luz. Find what being a witch means to you."

Luz nodded, determinedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be Paris' first fight in the story. Hint: Lilith does not like her.
> 
> Don't forget to leave a comment telling me what you think!


	5. Crowscare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for somebody from Paris’ past to show up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have decided this will be an AU. I want to make my own lore!

Paris sat in her workshop going over the supplies she would need for that day. With a checklist in hand, she went through each and every item until her recording was interrupted by a call.

“Hello?” Paris greeted, putting her checklist down.

“Hey, Paris~” The voices of Ed and Em greeted as their faces popped into view. Paris rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Hey, you two.”

“You’re ready for today, right?” Em inquired.

“Yes, I’ve been ready for the past three days, remember,” Paris replied.

“You’re checking you have everything, again, aren’t you?” Ed accused.

Paris’s eyes darted to her clipboard. “Whaaaat? No! That doesn’t sound like something I’d do.” Paris slickly answered. Unsurprisingly, the twins weren’t convinced, giving her deadpanned looks. “Anyway, what matters is if you two are ready to help me set stuff up.”

“Yeah, you can’t totally count on us!” Ed grinned.

“Just have to shake Mittens first,” Em added.

“Lay off you sister you two,” Paris chastised, “She tries her best.”

“Her best to have a stick up her...”

“OKAY.” Paris cut them off, “I’ll meet you two there in twenty minutes, don’t be late.”

And with that Paris ended the call. She looked over to the three duffel bags filled with sheets of glyphs and smiled.

This will be a Covention to remember...

* * *

“Is this cowl really necessary?” Luz asked as she tried to help Eda to stuff her copious amount of hair into the hood.

“Do you think all my wanted posters are for petty theft?” Eda shot back, followed by many ill-gotten goods spilling out of her hair. “Partly.” She quickly answered her own question. “But the big whammy is I disobeyed the law and refused to join a coven. If I'm seen, I could go to jail. Again.” Eda explained as she scooped the dropped items back up.

“Maybe this informative event will inspire you to join a coven.” Willow stepped forward with one of Eda’s wanted posters. Eda’s only response was to use a minor telekinesis spell to shove Willow’s hood over her eyes.

“Let's just get this over with,” Eda grumbled. Walking inside the convention centre where the Covention was being held. Going through the halls lined with different booths representing their respective covens. Willow and Gus explained to Luz how the covens worked, and Eda presenting her insight on why not to join one. Regardless, they still walked around inspecting each place with interest.

“Man,” Luz commented as they finished looking at the bureaucracy coven, “there are so many witches here.”

“Well, everyone does come to Covention,” Willow giggled. “It’s one of the biggest events of the year.”

“Yeah, but look at all the different kinds of witches! There’s way more here than there was at Hexside!” Luz exclaimed pointing out particular ones. “Big witches, little witches, witches with purple skin, witches with big ears... hey! That one even looks like Paris!” Luz pointed at a witch that, did indeed, look like Paris. It obviously wasn’t as the witch lacked her rose-red hair and rounded ears, instead, being topped with forest green and long pointed ears that had a hanafuda earring on the left one.

Eda squinted, inspecting the person for a moment before straightening up. “Nope, that’s just Paris. Hey Paris! Over here!” Eda called to the witch, who looked around and eyes widened. Quickly scanning the surrounding crowds, she made her way over to the group.

“Eda? What are you doing here? I thought you hated Covention!” the witch, apparently Paris, exclaimed.

“You can thank Luz for my little appearance. She threatened me with horrible literature.” Eda responded. Paris turned to see the three others standing there and staring at her with wide eyes.

Paris sighed before taking off her earing, her appearance returning to its natural form. “This is a glammer charm, conceals one’s appearance,” Paris explained as the younger witches nodded. She re-equipped the earring, allowing her body to shift to its disguised state.

“Why do you need this disguise though? I thought you already had that bird mask?” Luz asked her fellow human.

“That's less of a disguise, Luz, and more of my criminal alter self. But this does remind me to do this...” Paris said, quickly placing the same kind of tag on the back of Luz’s neck. Immediately, Luz’s ears grew longer to match that of her two other friends. “There are some people here that need not know that there’s an untrained human running about.” She looked to Eda, “Even if they keep good company.”

Luz, meanwhile, was fiddling with her new ears, which were not just a mere illusion but were somewhat tangible. They felt a bit different to the rest of her body like they were sewn on or something.

“That tag will last you a few hours,” Paris announced. “Have fun and try not to get into any trouble.”

“Wait, Paris!” Luz called out, stopping the older girl. “Why don’t you come with us?”

Paris smiled at the girl. “Thanks, Luz, but I have some things to do.” Paris subtly motioned to the three duffel bags she was holding, making sure Eda got the message. Eda did, giving a short nod before ushering the kids away. Paris watched them go until a hand gripped her shoulder.

“Ed. Em.” Paris he curtly greeted. The twins leaned around her wearing their usual mischievous smirks. “Ready for a convention the boiling isles won’t soon forget?”

“Always.” They both replied, each picking up a bag and following behind Paris.

* * *

Since separating from Paris, Luz had continued to fiddle with her new ears.

“man, these are so cool!” Luz said happily, “I look just like you guys!”

“I must admit, they are pretty convincing. It must be a pretty powerful illusion magic.” Willow said, now also fiddling with one of Luz's new extended ears. Meanwhile, Gus was distressed.

“But what if they never come back?! What if you can never look human again?!” He ranted. Luz and Willow chuckled at Gus’ obviously misplaced paranoia.

“Chill out Gus, Paris said it’d just be for a few hours.” Luz reminded. “Although I don’t know why Paris wanted me to have this, I think I look fine.”

“And human,” Eda interjected. “Listen, kid, there are some people on the isles who would do some bad stuff if they found out about that. Especially here, since they’re the...”

“The Emperor’s Coven!”

“Exactly. Wait what?” Eda turned to see that Gus had, unrelatedly, exclaimed the name posted above the arena entrance. Both he and Willow were bopping around in excitement before rushing inside. Luz made to follow them but was stopped by Eda grabbing her hoodie.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“To see what that coven is, Willow and Gus seemed really excited about it for some reason,” Luz answered her mentor.

“Look Luz, those guys are bad news. They're the main reason why they want me, and Paris’ alter ego locked up. And if they catch sight of you without that little tag, things may get messy.”

“Pa-shaw,” Luz dismissively waved her hand, “They can’t be that bad. Plus, anyway, this thing’s got another two hours or so, Paris didn’t really specify...”

Eda groaned as she ran a hand down her face. “Okay, fine. We can watch, but we keep a low profile. I’ll have more to fear from Paris than the coven if I lose sight of you.”

Luz fist pumped in victory and lead the way into the arena.

* * *

“...Annnnnnnd done.” Em said as she plastered the final glyph from the bag and wiping her brow. “You two finished?”

Ed gave her a thumbs up from where he was and after putting up one more herself, Paris did similarly. The twins handed the bags back to Paris who slung them over her shoulders.

“Okay you two, thanks for the help.” Paris thanked.

“Hey, no sweat.” Ed dismissed, “We better get back before Mittens gets too suspicious.”

“Didn't she go to the first Emperor’s coven demonstration?” Paris raised an eyebrow.

“Exactly, it should be finishing about now,” Em answered. “Don’t forget that they’re only doing two shows this year, you’ve only got one shot at this.”

Paris nodded. “Those birds are cooking up something big, I can tell. I’m not letting them so easily forget I’ll be here to stop them.”

The three friends had now made their way back to the main show floor. Paris waved goodbye to the green-haired witches as they separated. Paris walked around the coven booths for a bit before reaching an empty part of the convention centre. There, she placed one of her card-sized glyph sheets on the wall to dispel the illusion and reveal a small outcropping that housed another duffel bag. Paris exchanged her three empty ones with the new full one and replaced the illusion with another glyph sheet.

Opening in the bag, she checked she had everything. Mask, check. Cloak, check Spell Decks, check. Hex launcher, check. Repair glyphs in case Eda or Luz do something stupid...

Check.

Paris zipped the bag back up and walked back into the middle of the convention. Her walking lasted a few more seconds before she was pulled to the side.

“Paris! You gotta help me!” Luz yelled as she stood next to Eda who was wearing a headband.

Paris sighed and massaged her forehead. “What did you do this time, Luz?”

“I may or may not have challenged Amity Blight to a witch’s duel and said I’d stop learning magic if I lost...” Luz admitted. Paris blinked a few moments before palming her forehead.

“Salem damn it, Luz!” Paris yelled. “Why in the Demon Realm would you do that?!”

“She was being mean to King!” Luz defended.

Paris was starting to regret not focusing more time in healing magic to fix the migraine she was beginning to get. “So what’s your game plan?”

“I... don’t have one?” Luz shrugged with a weak smile. Paris, once again, found herself dumbfounded by Luz’s sheer compulsiveness.

“Good thing I do!” Eda interrupted.

“Eda, no.” Paris squelched the rambunctious witch’s idea before it got out of hand. “This was Luz’s decision and she needs to deal with the consequences.”

“Aw come on, Paris,” Eda complained, “Look, it’s not just about Luz, but she’s going up against my sister’s student too,”

Paris stopped at that. “Lilith?”

Eda realized she had stuck a point with Paris. She rubbed her hands mischievously.

“Yeah, you remember my sister. Head of the Emperor’s Coven?” Eda goaded.

“Lilith...” Paris’ eyes narrowed. She swivelled around to face her fellow human. “Hey, Luz~”

* * *

Luz stood across the arena from Amity, appearing confident but internally having a breakdown. Lilith was announcing their match as Luz held up the packet that Paris had given her. Opening it up she rifled through the cards, each with a picture on one side and a glyph on the other.

 _‘These cards are my bread and butter,’_ Paris’ words echoed through her head,

_‘the picture represents the element of the spell, so you don’t accidentally fire off a spell different from the one you wanted. To use them, you can either just activate the glyph, or, touch this glyph here,’ Paris pointed at smaller glyph in the corner ‘this is a homing glyph, pretty difficult for such a small size, but also pretty useful. Now, go kick butt out there Luz. I won’t be watching, I have... other things, to prepare.’_

Luz gulped and put most of the cards back, keeping out a fire card out.

‘Let’s do this.’ Luz thought as Amity approached her.

* * *

The sounds of battle began below as Paris, mask and cape donned, was moving about the desolate level above the arena. It was mostly dark, and a bit damp, but it was the best place to make her entrance once the duel had concluded.

Making rounds to make sure the fire glyphs were all ready to explode at her command, Paris was still worrying for Luz. Even if she had given the girl her own deck of spells, this was Amity Blight she was facing, and, going off her elder siblings’ abilities, she wouldn’t be a pushover.

The roaring of fire sounded below her through the thin floor, indicating that Luz had used a fire card. Paris smiled beneath her mask. Luz was certainly taking to this like a firefish to acid, which was to say pretty well. Almost, too well. It bugged Paris that Luz was adapting to magic so quickly, it had taken a full week for herself to learn a spell, and month more to actually use it properly. For Luz, it had barely been five days and was able to use the spell immediately, King had recounted the two’s run-in with Eda’s cursed form. But to be fair, it was the base form of a light spell, Paris had tried to learn an enchantment. Luckily, she had help from...

Paris’ shoulders slumped when she remembered them. It had been six years, and she still couldn’t forget. She wishes she could, though. Back when she had her own little team like Luz did now. Herself, Ed, Em, ...h-her, and-

Paris stopped when her eyes caught on a glyph. There was a large scratch right through it, making it completely useless. Paris would have brushed it off as an accident if the next one hadn’t borne a similar injury.

And the next one.

And the next one.

Paris kept finding glyph after glyph ruined. The only way this must of happened must have been intentionally done, but who knew enough about glyphs to know how to disable them safely? They should of gone off if tampered with. The only person Paris could think of was...

Paris rounded a corner to come face to face with a person. Their hood was drawn; long silky white hair still spilling out of it. Their tan skin contrasting their light snowy hair. Golden-rimmed Ruby garments clothed the person, a mixture between robes and armour. Blearing red eyes glistened with hatred. One small white horn poked out of the right side of their forehead. And a foreign emblem embellished on their ruby broach.

“Calamatis.” Paris gasped in shock.

“Parisdisies.” She hissed back without missing a beat.

In a flash, both drew a spell card and flung it at one another

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be gay do witchcraft
> 
> Next chapter will be the fights.


	6. Brimstone Harvest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time on SpellSlinger:
> 
> Luz vs. Amity
> 
> &
> 
> Harvester vs. Desolation
> 
> 3 2 1 Go!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly didn’t expect this to be such a large chapter or to be done so quickly but here we are.

“Abomination rise!”

Amity conjured a massive abomination out of a spell circle, being so large that it was towering over both herself and Luz.

“Whoa...” Amity breathed in slight surprise, not expecting to make an abomination that powerful. Her surprise quickly morphed into confidence as she looked back to Luz. “Show me what you got. Abomination, attack!”

“Aaaaahh!” Luz screamed in fear as she began running away from the abomination. As she was being chased, Luz quickly drew out a card from the deck and checked the back of it. It had a picture of fire.

Quickly tapping the homing glyph and then the fire glyph, she threw it at the abomination. It struck dead centre into the animated construct and did nothing for a few seconds, enough time for the abomination to look down at it before it detonated, sending bits of abomination everywhere.

“Whoa...” Luz gasped, looking down at the deck. “Paris was not kidding when she said these were powerful.”

“What was that?!” Amity yelled in anger, unable to figure out how Luz destroyed her abomination.

“Magic.” Luz smiled with reignited confidence. Growling, Amity summoned another abomination and sent it after Luz. Being ready this time, Luz drew a card with a picture of stone, activated the glyph, then slammed it on the floor. Like something was borrowing under the floor, the earth surged towards the abomination before getting close enough and firing out a spike to impale it.

Better commanding her abomination, Amity made it dodge to the side to avoid the attack.

“You aren’t even making spell circles, how are you even using magic?!”

“Why don’t you come and find out?” Luz quipped back before throwing an ice card at the abomination. Amity once again made it dodge, but it was to no avail as the card curved like a boomerang and struck the abomination in the back, encasing it in ice.

Drawing another spell, Luz slammed it down. The area in front of her glowed before an ethereal Chinese dragon burst from the ground and blasted through the frozen abomination. The dragon circled around the arena before hovering above Luz and letting out a roar. Amity took a step back in fear. Luz was looking up at the dragon in awe. she was begging to get why Paris was one of the most skilled witches in the Boiling Isles. The dragon twisted around once before hurtling itself at Amity.

Amity braced for impact as the dragon began to pass right through her, it wasn’t solid but every second she was in it hurt like her skin was being torn from her body. The dragon finally passed and flew back into the glowing portal thing from where it had come from, the spell card burning away when it was gone.

“Is... is that a-all you’ve g... got?!” Amity panted as she tried to stand up straight. Luz frowned, Amity obviously not doing so well and wasn’t throwing in the towel.

“Amity, you can’t go on like this,” Luz said to her in a soft and calm voice.

“Yes! Yes, I can!” She yelled back adamantly, attempting to draw another circle but failing halfway, falling down to one knee again. Luz ran over to her, putting the spell deck in her pocket as she did so. But she was stopped before she got there by somebody grabbing her wrist. She looked up to see Lilith standing there, frowning.

Changing her gaze to Eda, and her expression to that of a superior smile, Lilith spoke. “Well, Eda, I must admit, you had me going there for a while.”

“What are you talking about?” Eda crossed her arms as she approached her sister and their apprentices.

“I would have thought you’d cheat in a little more... direct way. I honestly congratulate your subtly.”

“Again, what are you talking about, Lilith?” Eda narrowed her eyes.

“This.” Lilith moved Luz’s hoddie out of the way to show the glammer charm on the back of Luz’s neck that Paris had put there. “How you got a power glyph from the construction coven I do not know, they’re usually very careful with their storage, but it was obvious that such a young witch would not be able to cast such powerful magic, especially without the aid of a spell circle.” Lilith made to take the tag off.

“Wait no!” Eda tried to stop her but was unable to reach her in time. As soon as the tag came off, Luz’s appearance returned to normal, her ears going from pointed to rounded. The tag in Lilith’s hand turned to ash immediately. She was surprised by this, but not as much as when she looked down to Luz.

“A... a... a human?!” Lilith exclaimed. She whipped around to Eda. “Your apprentice is a human!?”

“Wuh-oh.” Eda frowned.

“Now I know you must have been cheating!” Lilith poked a finger at Eda.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s where you’re going with this?” Eda asked with a chuckle, surprised Lilith wasn’t whisking Luz away on the spot.

“Humans can’t perform magic! So, of course, you cheated!”

Eda burst out laughing. “Wait, let me get this right. You think humans can’t do magic?”

“Of course!” Lilith replied as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

“And the big ol’ emperor hasn’t ordered you to haul any human you find away to his scary palace?”

“Why would he?!” Lilith began to get angrier by the second.

Eda once again burst out laughing again. “Man, I knew he kept you lot in the dark, but I never thought it’d be this much!”

Meanwhile, whilst Eda wound up her sister, Amity was fuming that she had been bested by Luz.

“I can’t believe this!” Amity yelled at the human girl, “Not only did you cheat, but you aren’t even a witch! Just a plain old human!”

“Hold on, yes, I am a human, but I didn’t cheat!” Luz protested.

“Ha! Like I’d believe that! How else could you do magic.”

“Oh, with these.” Luz held up the spell deck Paris had given her. Amity’s face began to go red.

“Is this some kind of joke? You beat me... WITH PLAYING CARDS?!!”

“B-but these aren’t...” Luz began weakly.

“I don’t care, I’m done.” And with that, Amity began walking away.

“Wait just a sec, Ms Protégé,” Eda said, putting her ‘conversation’ with her sister on hold to walk over to the egressing Amity. Moving her hair up, Eda pulled the glyph off of Amity’s neck.

“Hey, what are y...”

“Well, well, well.” Eda cut off Amity, smirking and turning around to Lilith. “All this time you thought I was cheating; you were actually cheating yourself!”

“I, uh, was, I...” Lilith spluttered before composing herself. “I only cheated because I knew you’d cheat!”

“Ha! Except I didn’t!” Eda laughed. “Hot dang I love convention. Man, wait till Paris hears about this!”

“But... I didn’t know!” Amity almost pleaded, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Amity...” Luz made to comfort her before the greenette ran out of the arena. “Luz quickly following.

“Eda! Knock it off. You're making a scene!” Lilith growled at her sister, who was now dancing.

“You cheated.” Eda pointed at Lilith. “Hey, where's the Rhyming Coven? What rhymes with ‘cheated’?”

“Stop acting like a child!” Lilith said in frustration.

“You were defeated, don't get heated, get your stank face treated.”

“Rhyme one more thing. I dare you!”

“Oh, it's okay, I'm done. Because my rhymes are...”

Eda never finished the sentence as the ceiling exploded in a burst of crimson fire and ice, Paris and Calamatis falling through the smoke moments later.

* * *

Luz rushed around the convention centre looking for Amity. She eventually found the witch crying in a small outcropping next to the bathrooms, surrounded by extra supplies for the covention.

“Amity... I'm sorry.” Luz apologized as she walked towards Amity.

“Ugh, seriously? Just leave me alone. I don’t want your pity.” Amity avoided looking at Luz.

“I... didn't mean to embarrass you.” Luz continued.

“That's all you ever do! First at school, and now this!” Amity waved her arms around.

“Yeah, but...”

“You made me look like a fool in front of the Emperor's Coven. My future!” Amity shot up. “You think it's so easy to be a witch. I have been working my whole life to get to the top! You lost! You cheated! Say it! Say you're not a witch!”

Luz flinched back at Amity’s harshness but complied. “I'm not a witch.” Luz knelt down and took out her pen and paper, making a light glyph and activating it. The small ball of light hovered above her hands. “But I'm training hard to be one.” Luz smiled as both girls watched the spell.

“That's nothing. A child could do a light spell.” Amity turned away. “But... I've never seen it cast like that.”

“It doesn't come naturally to me like it does for you, so I've had to improvise. Luckily, somebody is going to teach me how to do it better.” Luz chuckled.

Amity sighed as she drew a new spell circle and shook Luz’s hand through it. “The oath is unbound.”

“Did it work?” Luz asked, looking at her hand, “Can I still learn magic?”

Amity turned to leave. “Humans have no magical ability. But I doubt that'll stop you.”

The pair were interrupted by King who rushed up to Luz.

“Luz! Luz! You need to come quick!” the little demon pleaded.

“Why? What’s happening?”

* * *

Paris and Calamatis picked themselves up from the ground and faced one-another again. All eyes in the arena were on them.

“L-Lady Calamatis!” Lilith’s eyes widened as she made to move towards the red-clad girl. “Are you okay?”

Calamatis held up a hand, stopping Lilith in her tracks. “Stay out of this, Miss Clawthorne. She’s mine.”

On the other side of the arena, Eda was with Paris.

“You alright there P?” Eda asked.

“Good enough,” Paris grunted. “Is Luz safe?”

“She’s fine. But I have some things to tell you.” Eda patted her back before stepping away.

With their attention now focused on one-another, Paris and Calamatis began circling.

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding away.” Calamatis spat. “Never took me as one who stayed at the scene of the crime.”

“I see you’re still blaming me for that,” Paris replied, looking Calamatis up and down. “I must say you aren’t looking so good. Is it finally starting to take its toll on you?”

“Not in the slightest.” She took out a spell glyph.

“Let’s test that theory, shall we?” Paris replied, taking out her own glyph.

With a battle cry, Calamatis activated her glyph and hurled crimson fire towards Paris. Rolling out of the way, Paris retaliated by slamming her glyph on the ground, causing heavy metals chains to spring out and snake towards Calamatis. With another glyph and wave of crimson flame, the chains melted away to an ashen liquid.

Paris reached to her back and tapped the glyph she had embroidered into her cloak. It shone as Paris lifted into the air, the spell being that for flight. This time taking out her hex launcher, she loaded a plant round in and fired at Calamatis. Thorny vines began rapidly growing from the floor and entangling the witch. A little more crimson fire easily allowed Calamatis to escape almost unharmed.

She store up at Paris, fury boiling in her eyes and her horn growing slightly longer.

* * *

Luz, followed by Amity, ran back into the arena to find Paris engaged in combat. Looking around, she found Eda on the edge of the arena and quickly ran over to her.

“Eda! What’s happening? Who is Paris fighting?” Luz frantically asked her mentor.

“That, kid,” Eda pointed at the other witch, “Is Calamatis. Don’t know what she’s doing on the boiling isles though, thought she was from the Ζούγκλα Archipelago.”

“But why is she fighting Paris?”

“I don’t exactly know, but those two seem to have more beef than even me and Lilith.”

Luz turned back to the fight to see Paris through up a shield to block a stream of crimson fire, lasting all of three seconds before melting away.

* * *

Paris ducked under some more of her opponent’s attacks before throwing another of her own back.

“Stay still so I can make this easier for the both of us!” Calamatis yelled.

“Why don’t you use a different spell? Oh, that’s right, you can’t!” Paris yelled back as she shot a blast of energy at Calamatis, “You gave up all your magic for this one lame spell!”

“I’ll show you lame!” Calamatis activated two new glyphs and shot more streams of crimson fired, melting holes in the ceiling when she missed. “You’ll pay for what you did!”

“Oh, going back to that are we?” Paris asked as she flew around, barraging Calamatis with ice. “Why do you never include the fact that you betrayed us!”

“You betrayed me!”

“You signed a contract with Desolation!”

“You signed one with the Harvester!”

“The Harvester protects the natural cycle of life and magic; Desolation wants to see that all burn away!”

Calamatis growled again and pulled out a scroll from her robes and unfurled it. From a tornado of crimson fire, a giant arm emerged and swiped at Paris, knocking her to the ground. Evading a second swipe from the hand Paris reached to the back of her belt and took out a deck with a picture of a figure with a scythe.

“I hoped it didn’t have to come to this.” She said, drawing a card. Activating the intricate glyph, the card burned away as her hands were engulfed in a sickly green fire. Making a throwing motion, a jack-o-lantern was launched, the same colour fire spilling from its eyes and mouth as a burst of cackling laughter sounded from it. Sticking the arm, it was destroyed in a fit of two kinds of fire.

Calamatis coughed, being to close to the explosion and inhaling some of the resulting smoke. The smoke was also able to blind her from the second jack-o-lantern Paris threw. The projectile parted the smoke just in time for Calamatis to see it impacting at her feet. The resulting explosion launched Calamatis back until she hit the wall, out cold.

“Welp, I’m out of here,” Paris commented as she brought up an invisibility glyph and disappeared.

* * *

Exiting the arena in the midst of crowds of panicking witches, Eda Luz and King pushed their way to the door and popped out of the convention centre.

“Eda! We can’t just leave Paris like that!” Luz struggled, trying to get back in the convention centre, having to be carried out by Eda.

“Paris is fine,” Eda dismissed. “She’ll probably meet us back at the Owl House, now come one, we don’t need my sister finding out I slipped away,” Eda said as she jumped on her staff, setting Luz down next to her and king resting on Luz’s head.

* * *

As soon as Paris had arrived back at the Owl House, she threw off her mask, cloak and bandoliers, and flopped onto the couch, both physically and mentally exhausted. She did not think that today would have turned out like that.

Paris lay there for a few minutes before the door burst open and Luz rushed in.

“Paris?! Paris?! Are you here?!” Luz cupped her hands around her mouth to shout.

“I'm right here Luz.” Paris groaned into the couch. Luz had quickly wrapped her arms around Paris.

“Is she doing the thing to you too as well now?” Eda asked, entering with King.

“I told you before Eda, it’s called a hug and it’s a sign of affection,” Paris told the older witch, moving her face out of the cushions to see Eda move out of the room.

“Who the heck was that person you were fighting?” Luz asked, unable to hold her question in any longer.

“Calamatis, my old ‘friend’.” Paris sighed. “And as you could tell from our little performance, I use that term very lightly.” Paris sat up next to Luz. “Back when I was newer to the Demon Realm, she was my pretty much my best friend, along with Edric and Emira Blight. We went on adventures together, solved problems, had drama. But that all changed one day...” Paris looked away sadly.

“What happened?” Luz asked.

“I... made a mistake. A mistake Calamatis blames me harshly for. Enough to turn her into what you saw today.”

Both humans were silent for a little while longer before Luz asked another question that had been bugging her.

“Paris, why wasn’t Calamatis using spell circles?”

Paris took a deep breath. “When Calamatis ended our friendship, she made a deal with a being of great magic, magic that cannot be accessed without a contract with such beings. She made a contract with an evil being called Desolation, granting her the power of brimstone, it’s why her fire was crimson in colour.” Paris explained. “Brimstone is the hottest thing there is, it can melt through anything, and even burns away the soul.”

Luz gasped, covering her mouth.

“That’s why she has to use glyphs,” Paris continued, “Because if she used circles, it’d burn away her soul.”

Luz didn’t say anything to that, allowing the room to descend into silence.

“Hey,” Paris spoke, putting an arm around Luz, “Why don’t you tell me how your fight against Amity went?”

That seemed to cheer Luz up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOO
> 
> This chapter was a thing.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed that little insight into Paris’ past, it only gets better from here.
> 
> Who do you think Calamatis is, and what was the mistake that Paris made?
> 
> I always love hearing from you guys, so leave a comment!
> 
> Kamiro... AWAYYYYYYYYY!


	7. Magic²

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did some art for the story, it’s not the best but it’s something. (I have no idea how to post it here.)
> 
> Been updating other stories and doing the first chapter on some others. If you’re interested in voting on what story I should post next, wait to the end!
> 
> Until then, enjoy the (relatively shorter) chapter.

Paris, tired from projects in her workshop, gave a stretch as she entered the living room. In there, there was King, who was sleeping, Luz, who was watching Eda and Owlbert play cards, and Eda and Owlbert, playing cards.

Hexes Hold’em, to be exact.

Paris stared at the room for a long moment, considering her options.

“Nope,” Paris said aloud as she turned right around and headed for her room. Her journey was cut short by a shout from Luz.

“PARIS! EDA’S CURSE IS BACK!” Luz called.

Paris gave a long, drawn-out sigh as she turned around and headed back to the living room.

* * *

Somehow (LUZ!) being dragged to the market with the others, Paris sat with King and Luz as Eda rapped on a potion seller’s grated window.

“Is there anything better than people-watching in the Demon Realm?” Luz said happily as she watched people waiting for the ‘egg bus’ as she described it, only for one to be left behind. “The curse of tiny legs.”

“I know the pain.” Kind inputted.

Paris made no effort to contribute to the conversation. She had no idea why she let Luz talk her into coming, there was nothing for her to do here, and it really wasn’t all that exciting compared to what she did on a regular basis.

What did catch her attention, though, was Demon Hunters, back from a fresh catch.

“Whoa, that is one ominous parade,” Luz said. Eda turned to see what she was talking about.

“That's no parade, those are demon hunters; dangerous nomads who capture and sell the most powerful beasts,” Eda explained to the human. “Which is what I'm about to be if you don’t open up Morton!”

“What do you think about the Demon Hunters, Paris?” Luz asked the elder human.

“Well, for someone who avidly promotes magical beast protection and conservation...” Paris folded her arms and glared at the hunters, who were shocking the beast into unseriousness. “You can get a rough idea of how I feel about them.”

Luz backed away from the powerful magic-user as she radiated a deadly aura. He attention was diverted though when she spotted Willow and Gus, leading her to run over to them.

“Heya, friends!” Luz greeted, before noticing the downtrodden looks on their faces. “Wait, what's wrong? Who hurt my babies?”

“Them.” Willow pointed a thumb over her shoulder. Luz looked over to see the quote-unquote ‘Mean girls’ standing there. “Amity's having a moonlight conjuring and invited everyone but me.”

“And she keeps posting about it on her Penstagram account!” Gus added, holding up his scroll.

“ 'It's conjuring night! No dorks allowed’? What a jerk!” Luz folded her arms. “What's a moonlight conjuring?” She quickly asked, realizing she had no idea what it was.”

Willow seemed to brighten a bit. “You spend the night at someone's house, telling stories, playing games...”

“Like a slumber party! We have those!” Luz said.

“And then you bring something to life with moon magic!” Willow finished.

“...Like a wired slumber party!” Luz corrected herself, still ecstatic.

“Gus and I have never been to one; you need at least three people and...” Willow was cut short by Luz.

“I'm three people- I mean, we're three people, and we're way better than them!” She gestured to the mean girls.

“Sorry, you couldn't get an invite to the conjuring, Willow, only real witches allowed.” The three-eyed witch, Boscha, mocked.

“Leave her alone; it's not her fault she was born without talent,” Amity said, mostly ignoring the three friends. Her eyes did widen for a fraction of a second when she saw Paris standing behind them, much to everyone else’s obliviousness.

“You three a doing a moonlight conjuring?” Paris asked in a flat tone, announcing her presence.

“AHH! PARIS!” Luz exclaimed in shock, jumping back much like Gus and Willow.

“I'm glad you reminded me that’s it’s a moonlight conjuring time, I was running low on... certain supplies.” Paris vaguely stated.

“What supplies?” Luz asked, fearing the answer.

“Rocks,” Paris answered.

“Oh. Well, yeah! We’re going to do a midnight conjuring!”

“Are you serious?” Gus questioned, “This was on my bucket list, after owning a real human bucket!” He pulled out a list and ticked off the box next to ‘Moonlight conjuring’.

“You know there’s already a tunnel under Hexside, right?” Paris asked the young witch.

“There is?!” Gus gasped.

“Okay...” Luz looked side to side awkwardly. “I'm going to go tell Eda!”

* * *

Luz ran back tot he potion store where Eda was. “Eda, Gus and Willow and I are gonna do a moonlight conjuring and stick it to Amity, so can we...”

Eda quickly shot down the idea. “Not tonight, I'm going out. I need you to watch the house, I have many precious objects in there.”

“Like me!” King cheered.

“You're coming with me; I need an extra pair of eyes looking out for pickpockets, and an extra pair of hands in case I want to pickpocket,” Eda told the small demon, lifting him up.

“But can’t Paris look after the house?” Luz asked.

Eda was about to point out a flaw in Luz’s logic but couldn’t find one. “Okay fine. But you’ll have to ask Paris, and if she says no...”

“Yep got it, Eda, thanks!” Luz called as she ran back to Paris.

“PARIS! Parisparisparisparis, **PARIS**! Can you look after the Owl house so we can have a moonlight conjuring?” Luz pleaded. Willow and Gus took their human friend’s lead and gave hopeful looks to Paris.

Paris looked at the three and thought. “Yes, but on one condition.”

“Yes! Paris, anything!” Luz agreed hastily.

“You need to have it at the Owl house. I'm not having you running around where you can get in trouble.” Paris then thought for a moment. “Well, trouble I can’t get you out of, that is.”

“Yes!” Luz high-fived Willow and Gus. “Moonlight conjuring baby!”

“Moonlight conjuring!” they cheered.

* * *

“Alright, I'm off now,” Eda said as she threw on a maroon cape. “Paris, you’re in charge.”

“Got it.” Paris nodded, wearing a black sweater and navy-blue pants.

“Luz, don’t do anything stupid,” Eda said to the smaller human.

“No promises!”

Eda narrowed her eyes.

“I’ll try not to?” Luz shrugged with a weak smile.

“Best I'm getting. Okay, King and I are leaving now.”

“Wait, where is King?” Luz asked, looking around and not spotting the small demon.

“He’s right here.” Eda parted her cloak to show King strapped to her chest, and completely asleep. “His little body just conks out when he's weightless. Look at this.” Eda proceeded to sway from side to side, King’s limbs following the motion like a rag doll.

“Aww, he’s so dangly!” Luz cooed.

“Anyway, I really do have to leave now, before these feathers start sprouting up anywhere else. Bye!” And with that, Eda disappeared into the forest.

“You guys can come out now!” Luz called to the bushes. The bushes exploded into leaves, revealing Willow and Gus were hiding in them thanks to Willow’s magic.

“I'm a sneaky sneakster!” Willow said.

“I’ve got leaves in my pants!” Gus announced. “And I like it!”

“You know you didn’t have to hide till Eda left, right?” Paris pointed out. The three friends stared blankly at her, apparently not realizing that they could. Paris sighed. “Okay you weird little munchkins, I'm going to be in my workshop tonight. Please only interrupt me if something bad happens, or you cause something bad to happen, either of which I will solve, but not be happy to do so. Also, don’t mess up the house, Eda won’t be happy.”

“Okay!” the three cried their agreement.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, Paris!”

“Thank you, now goodbye,” Paris said as she left to further into the house.

* * *

Paris sat in her workshop, carving out an idol from a piece of rock she had sitting in the moonlight.

“Heh, I never did specify to Luz that the rocks I was using were golem stones...” She chuckled to herself. Then she paused. “Do golems count as rocks? I mean, they’re made of them...” Paris pondered before shrugging and returning to her work.

Setting aside the finished golem next to four others, she picked up the next rock one and began the work on it.

Was what she would have done if her workshop didn’t begin shaking violently.

“What the...” Paris set her tools down once the shaking stopped and walked to the door.

Throwing it open, she was quite surprised by what she found behind it. Which, somewhat ironically, was nothing.

The Owl House was gone.

“LUZ!” Paris shouted into the night.

* * *

“I've never pranked anyone before. And now I have a taste for it!” Gus said after the friends had just finished prank Boscha.

“We should follow her to Amity's house to show off our conjuring,” Willow suggested. “That will show her who's got no talent.”

Luz looked over to the moon, which was dipping in the night sky. “Actually, I'm starting to think we should head back.”

“Amity's updating her Penstagram.” Gus said, having conjured his scroll and showing it to Luz.

“Shout out to my fellow witches. #Humans can bite it.” Luz gasped “Let's do it.”

It was at this moment that Luz’s phone began ringing.

“Huh, wonder who’s calling me?” Luz said as she brought her phone out to answer it. “Yellow?”

“LUZ!” Paris’s voice blasted through the phone, causing Luz to wince. “Where is the Owl House?!”

“Whaaaa? What are you talking about? The house is where it always is.” Luz tried to play off the question. There was no response for a few moments.

“Luz put me on facetime,” Paris demanded. Luz winced again, bringing the phone away from her ear as she hit the video button, causing Paris’ deadpan face to appear.

“Show me Hooty.” She told Luz. Luz begrudgingly complied and turned the phone to the glowing-eyed house demon. Paris made a long, drawn-out sigh. “Yep, you animated the house. Stay where you are, I'm coming to get you.”

“Wait, how are you going to find us?” Luz asked.

Paris deadpanned again. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe I’ll follow THESE GIANT BIRD FOOTPRINTS!” Paris turned the camera to show exactly that in the mud, leading away from the crater which the house left from. “Which reminds me. Keep on your guard, somebody else could have followed you.” And with that, Paris ended the call. Luz looked to her two friends.

“Well, I guess sticking it to Amity is off the table.” Willow slumped.

Luz’s eyes flicked to the phone she was holding, before back to the green-haired witch. A smile spread across her face.

“Y’know, Paris won’t catch up to us for a while, we still have time to do it,” Luz suggested.

Willow looked like she could have kissed Luz she was so excited.

* * *

Luz had not thought what to do if they were captured. Maybe she should have listened to Paris.

“Take the house and rip out the house demon. We can sell it to restaurants as exotic meat.” The head demon hunter told his subordinate.

“No! Hooty would taste terrible!” Luz attempted to sway the hunters.

“Hey, I'm a refined taste. Hoot! Hoot!” The tranced Hooty defied.

“What do we do with the worms?” One of the hunter’s asked, referring to Luz, Willow and Gus.

The head hunter gave them a grin that was wildly unnerving. “Throw them over the cliff.”

* * *

Paris flew through the forest, following the new tracks from a large wagon.

‘Of course,’ Paris thought to herself, ‘Of course Luz had to not only take the house for a joyride but get herself captured in the process. I am honestly that close to just shoving her back into the human realm.’

Her train of thought was thrown off when she _finally_ spotted the Owl House. The only major difference with it was the pair of chicken legs protruding from the massive clump of dirt at the bottom of the house. There were Demon Hunters surrounding the house, but where were the kids?

Paris silently touched down and knocked out a nearby hunter with a kick to the head. None of the others had noticed yet. Paris took a deck out of her bandolier and readied a gas spell. She edged around the wagon, using it to block the view of the hunters so they didn’t see her.

Reaching a corner, she assessed the Hunters and decided which one to target. Rounding the corner, she stopped mid-swing when a thorny vine with a large leaf raised from the cliff, carrying Luz Willow and Gus on it. All the hunter paused to stare gob-smacked at the spectacle.

Paris chuckled. “Never underestimate dryads.” She flung the spell card at one of the distracted hunters, gas quickly spreading out from the point of impact and enveloping him and nearby hunters. They all began coughing violently before dropping unconscious.

“Paris!” Luz cried happily.

“Not now Luz!” Paris called back, throwing a fire spell at another group of hunters. “You three need to get the house back where it belongs, Now!”

“Got it! Got it!” Luz said, running past the veteran spellcaster with Willow and Gus to get to the Owl House.

* * *

“Did we do it?” Luz asked her friends when they had successfully returned the Owl House. The door creaked open to show a dazed Hooty.

“Is the room spinning or is it just me?” Hooty chuckled. “Ah. Just a little house humour. Ooh.” He winced, feeling exhausted.

“Sorry about that Hooty,” Luz apologized, rubbing the back of her head.

“It's okay. I'm just glad I was included.” Hooty replied.

The door was then quickly and suddenly closed By Eda, Paris and King standing next to her.

“Oh boy...” Luz said, knowing she was in trouble from not only her human mentor but her witch one as well now.

“You are so busted,” Eda said to the young teens.

“Oh, man...”

“You animated my house. My house!”

“I did!” Luz admitted.

“You didn’t listen to Paris, who **_I_** left in charge!”

“Yes!”

“No. Don't punish Luz. We're the ones who pushed her!” Willow stepped between Eda and Luz, defending her friend.

“If you're gonna eat me just do it now. Do it now!” Gus included.

“Hey, you didn't have to do that,” Luz said to Willow.

“Yes Luz,” Willow disagreed, “Yes I did.”

“Well, you're all guilty, so you'll all be punished by cleaning my house top to bottom,” Eda told them as she conjured cleaning supplies for them. “And another thing...” Eda turned back to the kids, who all gulped. “That was totally amazing. And I'm so joining you for next year's conjuring. Now get to work.” Eda then fell back onto the couch as the kids scurried away to get started on their task.

“I can’t believe they animated a whole house,” King commented.

“Hey, yeah.” Eda agreed. “Especially on their first conjuring. What do you think, Paris?” Eda looked to the Ruby-haired human.

Paris almost didn’t hear her, instead intently staring at Luz. “It almost shouldn’t be possible.”

“Yeah, it does take some powerful magic to animate a house.” Eda chuckled.

“Not only that, but they suppressed the will of a house demon as well, all unintentionally.” Paris corrected. “Sure, I can do that all by myself now, but I’ve had years of training, and have a contract with a being of great magic.” Paris continued. “If I had to guess, Luz has about as much magic as I would without my contract.”

“Whoa, that is something.” Eda was now staring at Luz as well. Paris meanwhile was thinking intensely. Moving to her cloak, she pulled out a card. On it was a light glyph, one of, if not _the_ , most unmalleable spells.

“I wonder...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there’s your chapter, hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> Now, here are some stories that I have an idea on posting, leave a comment saying which one you want!
> 
> Hilda (Carton) – Rose Wilderflower  
> One Piece (Anime/Manga) – Hydrophobia  
> Carmon Sandiego (Cartoon) – Carm0n Sandieg0  
> Kipo and the Age of Wounderbests (Cartoon) – Apex Predator  
> Destiny x Star Wars (Crossover) – Dusk before Dawn  
> Adventure Time (Cartoon) – Zoe Abadeer the Demon Princess
> 
> Tell me what you think should be next!


	8. Paperback Memorial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank the lord for plot bunnies, as I was having trouble writing this chapter, considering Paris and the Blight Twins’ relationship and how Ed and Em act in cannon.
> 
> Anywho, better pay close attention to this chapter because some major plot points will be hinted at. Leave a review with a guess of what you think they are!
> 
> Also, on the subject of the last chapter about a new story, I’ve got the first bit of Rose Wilderflower down, but am having a bit of trouble with Zoe the Demon Princess, so stay tuned because I also want to update some of my other stories too. But! I will get both these out eventually.\
> 
> (Edit: Just saw the Hilda S2 trailer, I’ll work harder on Rose Wilderflower in time for the new episodes. Maybe.)
> 
> Now, without further ado, on with Lost in Language, or in other words,
> 
> SpellSlinger ep.8; Paperback Memorial

< _SpellSlinger_ >

Paris emerged from her dark lair (her workroom) whilst holding a black leather-bound book with golden thorned vines etched onto the covers. A scratching of a pen echoed as she diverted her whole attention to the book. Bearly hearing voices come from the living room, she unconsciously began steering herself towards the front of the house.

Paris was suddenly broken out of her work-induced trance when somebody, who she had no idea, brushed pass her whilst giving an energetic greeting.

Ah. Probably Luz then.

Paris resumed her writing, this time now less engrossed, choosing to sit down on the couch before she forgot to give her legs a break and regret it later. She, however, shot straight back up when she sat on something hard.

Looking back at the couch, she saw that Luz’s ‘Azura the Good Witch’ was sitting on the couch, most likely discarded by Luz when something more interesting came up.

Closing her own book and setting it aside, Paris picked up the novel to see why it intrigued her fellow human so much. Opening it up, she began reading the human realm fantasy story.

‘Huh,’ Paris thought, ‘The language they use is pretty flowery, wonder if it was a design choice for the series of just a writer habit?’

Paris kept reading until she got to a page with an illustration on it. It was of the main character Azura addressing a group of people. Paris slowed down. Then stopped. Then froze.

She knew some of the people from the illustration. Not personally, but she knew them.

‘Hang on...’ Paris thought as she realized something. Taking out a pair of reading glasses from her belt and flipping back to the front of the book, she began re-reading the book.

‘Of course!’ Paris exclaimed internally, ‘Nobody would write such flowery language without a purpose!’ she began skimming the book to further prove her theory. ‘It’s here! All of it! But how did it get into a book series in the human realm? Wait...’

It was then Paris remembered something. Putting the book aside. She took out her scroll and called Ed and Em’s connected number. Paris took a brief moment to sigh in amusement at how her two friends operated.

“ _Hello and greetings, Emira and Edric speaking..._ ” the twins greeted in unison as the answered the call.

“Em, Ed, correct me if I'm wrong but you said you’ve seen your sister reading ‘Azura the Good Witch’.”

“ _Yeah, it’s like her favourite series_ ” Emira confirmed.

“ _Although she’d never admit it and would also probably die of embarrassment if she knew we knew that she read it,_ ” Ed added.

“Do you know where she keeps her series?” Paris asked with a little urgency in her voice.

“ _Whoa Paris, don’t tell us you of all people has gotten into it!_ ” Em exclaimed with amusement.

“I guess you could say that, but it’s not really the narrative I enjoy, but what’s hidden inside of it,” Paris replied, her voice brimming with mirth.

“ _Whoa! Really?!_ ” Ed asked, curious.

“Yep. Full instructions on what we’ve been looking for.”

“ _NO. WAY._ ” Em said. Paris could imagine her jaw hanging open.

“Yes way. Now, do you know where she keeps her series or not?” Paris urged for an answer to her earlier question.

“ _We don’t know for sure, but we have an idea of where it_ could _be,_ ” Ed answered.

“And where’s that?”

“ _The Central Library,_ ” _Em replied,_ “ _We’ve suspected she has a hideout there for some time._ ”

“Good. I’ll meet you there.”

“ _Paris, we were going to meet there anyway. Remember what today is?_ ” Ed reminded.

Paris took her scroll away from her ear to look at the date. When she read it, she felt like a bottomless pit had appeared in her stomach.

“Oh... Yeah, today.” Paris said shakily as she returned the scroll to its speaking position.

“ _It’ll be okay, Paris,_ ” Em reassured. “ _We know how you need this._ ”

“Thanks, guys.” Paris smiled. “I’ll...

Paris was suddenly cut off as the house began shaking and a loud noise emanated from the kitchen.

“WHAT THE-

< _SpellSlinger_ >

Paris was now leading Luz towards the Boiling Isles Central Library, the largest collection of (approved) books in the isles. Eda, apparently, had sent Luz to return her disgracefully overdue collection that she had borrowed, so it was convenient that Paris was also going, and could show Luz the way there.

As they rounded a corner, the library came into view.

“Welcome, Luz, to the Boiling Isles Central library, the largest collection of (approved) books in the isles.” Paris gestured at the large building.

“Whoa...” Luz gazed at it in awe. Realizing that Paris had begun walking away, Luz spud up to catch up to her.

“So what’s the library like?” Luz asked the older human.

“I dunno,” Paris shrugged, “Like a normal library? It’s got books, it’s just a little more... Boiling Isles-y”

“I'm not sure whether to be excited or frightened.”

The two walked through the smaller set of doors that were in the larger set of doors and entered the library. As they walked down the foyer hallway, the tall stack of books that Luz was balancing began to float out of her hands as a librarian marked them off as returned.

“Late... Late... Late...” the man said as the books through a small portal-like glowing ring before picking one out and inspecting it as Luz and Paris got to the front desk. “Coffee, grass and bloodstains? These are Eda's, aren't they?”

“Huh. That was a crazy night.” Luz chuckled weekly.

“And it’s also the reason why I took to locking the coffee away,” Paris added.

The librarian sighed. “I'll put them on her tab. Oh, and by the way, we're closing early for the Wailing star meteor shower.”

“Ooh. What’s that?” Luz asked, curious.

“It’s what it sounds like Luz,” Paris told the younger human, leading her away from the front desk. “Once a year, a star with the capability to scream passes by the Boiling Isles.”

“Can we see it?” Luz asked innocently.

Paris sighed, but in the end, smiled. “Yes, Luz. It’s in the sky after all.”

“Oh right.”

“Okay Luz,” Paris stopped and turned to her companion, “I'm going to meet with my friends now, you can look around till I come to get you, just, don’t do anything that I’ll regret.”

“You mean anything that I’ll regret?” Luz asked, pointing to herself.

“No.”

< _SpellSlinger_ >

“Hey P!”

Paris turned to see the green-headed twins casually strolling over towards herself.

“Ed, Em.” Paris nodded with a smile as they exchanged high-fives, including the twins giving one-another a high five despite having arrived together. “So, what’s with the bag?” Paris asked, looking at the pink dog-styled bag Ed was holding.

“Mittens forgot her Lunch, so we were given the duty to come and take it to her since we were already going to the Library,” Ed answered, holding up the bag

“Huh, what a coincidence. I took Luz here because Eda wanted her to return some books.”

The twins exchanged a glance as well as a sly smile. Paris blinked in confusion.

“What are you two... wait.” Paris’ brow furrowed as she caught on. “No. NO! Don’t you dare!”

“C’mon, P, it’ll be fun!” Em pleaded.

“No! I'm not letting you sweep Luz up in you mischief-making!” Paris stamped her foot.

“Oh, we didn’t just think Luz...” Ed wiggled his eyebrows.

“Ohoho no, you two. I am not getting kicked out of the library a second time!” Paris poked a finger at the twins.

“Paris, when’s the last time we’ve done something fun together?” Em asked. “And... we also just want to give you a good time before... y’know. That.”

Paris’s budding anger was quickly diminished at Emira’s words. Looking down at her feet in thought, she considered what the twins were proposing.

“Okay. You win. We’ll have some fun with Luz. I mean,” Paris paused to chuckle, “it’s been a while since the... Blackwood forest fair incident...” She coyly smiled.

Ed and Em’s faces lit up; large open-mouthed smiles plastered on their expressions. Both leapt up into the air with a cheer.

Right before being shushed by a passing Librarian.

< _SpellSlinger_ >

“Ugh, you.”

“Amity... Whoop.” Luz exclaimed as the book she was resting on fell of the shelf. Reading to kids. Wooow! Looks like this sour lemon drop has a hidden sweet centre.”

“It's for extra credit. Don't get your leggings in a bunch.” Amity brushed off as she picked up the book Luz knocked down and turned to put it on the short table along with the one, she was holding.

“Hey, I could help with the kids.” Luz offered. “We could take turns reading. And do voices. I do the best,” Luz the shifted to a robotic tone, “monster voice.”

“Human!” Amity slammed the books down. “Do you see me going to the Owl Shack and bugging you while you... while you fry up owls!? Okay,” she scoffed, “I don't really know what you do there, but every time you come near me, I get in trouble! Just... Just leave me alone!” Amity shouted at Luz.

“I'm sorry!” Luz apologised as she turned away. “I'm sorry... So much for befriending rivals.” Luz spoke to herself as she left the children’s section.

“Hey, don’t let her get to you like that.”

Luz turned to see two witches in Hexside uniforms, both with green hair. And standing next to them was

“Paris?” Luz questioned.

“Luz, I’d like to introduce my two best friends, the twins, Edric and Emira Blight. Amity’s big siblings.” Paris introduced, gesturing to each twin in turn.

“Nice to meet ya!” Em winked. A small blush appeared on Luz’s face, causing Paris to raise an eyebrow.

“Soooo... what are you guys doing?” Luz asked.

“Oh, we were going to just hang out and have some fun, y’know, cool stuff,” Ed explained. “Like this: Hey, Mittens!”

Luz, looking back to Amity, saw her freeze, hunch over, and her ears go slightly red.

“Mom says stop forgetting your lunch. And stop being a jerk to your friend.” Ed continued.

Amity begrudgingly stomped over to them and snatched the bag out of Ed’s hand. “She,” She glared at Luz briefly before returning her scowl to Ed, “is not my friend.”

“Yeah, makes sense.” Em agreed, putting a hand on Luz’s shoulder. “She seems too cool for you.”

“I am?” Luz questioned.

“You can all leave now!” Amity ordered before once again stomping away. The twins laughed at their little sister’s behaviour before shooting matching smiles to Luz as Paris rolled her eyes, a smile of her own failing to hide.

< _SpellSlinger_ >

“So, you're the new human Paris has told us so much about.”

Paris, the twins, and Luz were now walking down the rows of the library as the twins casually interrogated Luz.

“I do not talk about Luz that much.” Paris denied. Ed shrugged in response.

“Well, as our scarlet-haired friend has already told you, I'm Emira. And this is Edric.” Em introduced herself and Ed a second time. “We're Amity's older, _cooler_ , siblings. We heard how you embarrassed her at the school and saw how at the Covention last week. No wonder she hates you.”

“I know! But I didn't mean any of it!” Luz frantically apologized ash she smooshed her cheeks. “I thought we were as cool as cucumbers. But we're as sour as pickles.”

Paris looked away and covered her mouth as she snorted a laugh.

“Yeah, she was like: ‘Ahh! You defeated me with playing cards!’.” Ed said dramatically, pretending to fall over whilst reaching a hand upwards and clutching his chest.

“Don’t worry about Mittens,” Em gave a dismissal wave. “She’s a prickly little cactus. Just give her some time and she’ll either keep hating you or tolerate you enough to ignore your presence.”

Luz drooped at that.

“Anyway, we were going to have some fun with our good friend P here, wanna join?” Ed asked, slinging his arm around Paris, who’s face was still deadpan.

“Sure!” Luz said face brightening at the prospect of fun.

< _SpellSlinger_ >

“You've made reading far too fun.” A librarian told Paris, Luz and the twins out the front door as consequence for their prior gallivanting. “Now, stay out.” And with that, he slammed the doors behind himself.

The friends all stared at the door for a moment before bursting into laughter, even Paris.

“Man, it feels good to have fun like this again.” Paris smiled genuinely.

“Yeah, but Amity’s even madder at me now,” Luz said, still chuckling. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

Ed shook his head. “No, when Mittens gets mad, she looks like this.” He began inhaling sharply until his face turned red. He then exhaled and stumbled slightly. “Whoa, almost passed out.”

“So basically she looks like one of you two blushing?” Paris teased with a coy smile.

Both twins responded by avoiding eye contact.

“So, anyway,” Em cleared her throat, leaning over towards Luz, “You’re pretty fun, Luz. Us three were actually coming back tonight, and we were wondering if you wanted to tag along.”

“And bonus,” Ed walked up next to his sister, copying her pose, “The Wailing Star in actually unlocks something special in the library. You in, friend?”

“Sure!” Luz answered with a shrug and a smile.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Paris stepped between them all. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to bring Luz along?” she asked.

“Oh, come on P, Luz is pretty cool, why can’t she come along?” Em asked.

“Yeah, Paris! I'm cool!” Luz pleaded.

Paris gave stern glances to both the Twins and Luz before she began laughing.

“I'm just messing with you all! I think it’s fine if you come, Luz!”

The other three relaxed and all gave a good-hearted chuckle at Paris’ joke.

“Ok then, we’ll meet you guys back here at midnight then.” Ed waved goodbye as he and Em descended the stone stairs before both pausing.

“And, P?” Em spoke to Paris.

“Yeah?”

Em spared a glance at Ed before turning back. “It’s good to see the old you again.”

Paris smiled warmly. “It’s good to be back, too.”

Luz looked between the three until the Twins were out of sight.

“What do they mean, the old you?” Luz asked as she picked up her bag and followed the now leaving Paris.

Paris sighed sadly. “People change, Luz. For better or for worse. And sometimes, their old self leaks through.” Paris paused to look at the sky. “Something I wish leaked a little more for me.” Her expression shifted to a grim frown. “And for her...” she muttered.

“Huh?” Luz asked, having not caught the last part.

“Oh, what?” Paris asked as she was shocked back into reality. “Oh! Nothing, nothing. It doesn’t really matter.” Paris answered, brushing off the question. “C’mon, let’s get back to the Owl house, I want to make sure Eda didn’t change her mind and decide to eat the baby... yet.”

< _SpellSlinger_ >

“I just had the best day!” Luz announced as she entered the Owl House with Paris. “Cool teens like me! Call me a library book 'cause they were checking me out.”

“Hey! I like you! Aren’t I cool?” Paris asked in mock-offence. Luz was about to respond, not picking up on the joke, when she spotted Eda on the couch, gently rocking the baby bat demon.

“Aw, Eda, you look so motherly.” Luz cooed.

“Say that again and I steal your tongue.” Eda deadpanned as Luz walked over to her.

“Aw. How can you say that around this cute little baby?” Luz said as she gently poked the baby.

Doing this, however, caused the baby to wake up and spit out a slightly smaller version of itself, which in turn, also spat out a slightly small version of itself, all three of which began flying around.

“Ah!” Luz exclaimed as she recoiled.

Wildly flying about the room, the largest baby suddenly spewed a stream of fire at the couch, which Eda was sitting on.

“AAAHHH!” Eda, Luz and King screamed as they scattered away from the couch.

“Not the couch!” Paris shouted in dismay from the doorway.

< _SpellSlinger_ >

“Gotta be cool,” Luz said to herself as she and Paris waited for the Twins. “Cool? No. Cool.” She began performing different poses.

Paris blinked before pinching the bridge of her nose. “Luz... it’s fine. Just... do what you normally do; be a complete weirdo with a good heart.”

“You think I'm a weirdo?!” Luz asked in shock.

Paris raised an eyebrow. “...Are you not?”

“Touché.”

“Touché indeed,” Ed said as he and Em finished climbing up the steps. “What are we talking about?”

“Uh, nothing!” “Luz being a weirdo.” Both Luz and Paris said simultaneously.

“A weirdo huh?” Em asked. Luz began sweating nervously as her face reddened. “Well the best of us are, I suppose. Like P here.” She jutted a thumb at Paris, who responded by flipping her friend off.

“Well, without further adieu, if you will P?” Ed asked Paris. Paris put her hand down, moving the other into her satchel and pulling out a spell glyph. A rather large spell glyph. One that was big enough to cover the large keyhole that locked the library's doors tight together.

When she had done adhering the glyph to the door, she tapped the glyph, activating the spell which caused the keyhole to enlarge to a size that it could be easily walked through, which all four did.

“Standing in a dimly lit lobby. You guys know how to party.” Luz noted happily once they were inside.

“Just give it a sec, Luz.” Paris smiled.

“There. The Wailing Star!” Edric called out, pointing out a stained-glass window as a shooting star, that was indeed wailing, passed by and briefly illuminated the library.

“Oh, wow, look at that, nothing happened,” Em remarked with obvious mirth in her voice, nudging her brother and looking to Luz.

“Wait. The books are all glowy.” Luz pointed out, not picking up on the liberal use of sarcasm. Luz stepped over to a bookshelf and pulled one of the books out at random.

Opening it, a flock of birds surged out of it and began flying around the high-roofed library. After staring at the birds in awe for a few seconds, Luz absent-mindedly closed the book, causing them all to fade away.

“The star magicked the books to life!” Luz cried in joy

“Yep,” Ed confirmed, “Us three come here every year to enjoy messing around with the books.”

“Well we all used to, now only Ed and I mess with the books. P... has something else to do.” Em looked to Paris, who was already leaving in a certain direction and pulling a blue and gold book out of her satchel.

Luz made to go after her, but Em’s hand caught her shoulder and held her back. When Luz looked to the Blight twin as if to ask why, both she and Ed simple shook their heads.

< _SpellSlinger_ >

Paris finally arrived at a secluded back room of the library, far away from any of the rambunctious antics that the others would no doubt have.

She took off her cloak, satchel and bandolier and set them to the side as she sat down cross-legged and took hold of the book in both hands.

Paris stared longingly at it as she stroked the cover. With a deep breath, she opened it.

A rainbow light bloomed into existence in front of her, illuminating the dark room brilliantly, before dimming, leaving something in its place.

“Hey.” Paris greeted.

“Hey Pif,” the person greeted back.

Paris chuckled. “C’mon, only my stupid family calls me that.”

“Weren’t I like your sister?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you were.”

< _SpellSlinger_ >

“Luz, check this out!” Ed called to the young human as he and Em entered the kid’s corner, where Luz was.

“What is it?” Luz asked quickly hiding a book behind her back.

“Well, we wanted to show you something cool when you mess with the books,” Em explained, holding up a pen as Ed opened a book that made a large quacking duckling appear.

“Aw. Cute little quackster.” Luz cooed. That soon ended as Em drew hairy man legs onto the book, which soon imprinted onto the little duck in reality. Luz reared away from the grotesque man-duck as the twins chuckled.

“Now it’s your turn, Luz!” Ed gave the pen to Luz.

“I dunno... Won’t somebody notice?” Luz asked.

“Nah, Paris gave us these!” Ed held up some tags.

“Crono-rest spells,” Em answered Luz’s confused gaze. “They’ll reset anything inanimate to how it was a few hours ago.”

As a demonstration, Ed put one on the book they had doodled in, and, much like they had explained, they all watch a clock face running backwards briefly appear before the book, and the apparated duck was back to how they were before.

“Cool...” Luz watched in awe.

< _SpellSlinger_ >

“So, there’s a new human on the isles,” Paris commented.

“Whoa! Really?” they asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, her name’s Luz. She not the most... focused, but she’s got, heart. Real big heart.” Paris gave a hearty chuckle.

“Sounds like how you used to be.”

“Yeah... Hey, wait! I was never unfocused!” Paris objected to the other’s laughter.

“You totally were though! You were always like: ‘Ooh, magic this!’ and ‘Ooh, magic that.’!”

Paris turned her head away and pouted. “I was fascinating... it _still_ is.” Paris gave a deep sigh. “It’s just, in all the countless places I’ve seen, brimming with absolute pure magical potential, even that tree I call my home, this place has the weirdest kind of witchcraft I’ve seen, it’s also the only place I’ve ever seen possibility of... that, kind of magic.”

A reassuring hand found its way to Paris’ shoulder. “It’s okay, just, breathe, and tell me what you need to tell me.”

Paris did just that. “I found... instructions. Hidden in fantasy novels published in the Demon realm’s sister Earth.” Paris berried her head into her knees. “And I think Luz can do it. Perhaps the _only_ non-demigod that can do it, and even then, the only one of those I’ve seen do it is Scyne.”

“Your brother’s girlfriend?”

Paris almost chocked on her own saliva before cracking up.

“Oh, oh-ho g-od!” Paris laughed as she gasped for air. “I would give anything to see his reaction if you said that to him!”

They smiled. “So, how is your family by the way?”

“Haaaa...” Paris finished laughing. “They’re fine. We have Sunday dinners together now. It's nice.” She turned to the other. “I can still save you, y’know. There are a dime a dozen spells that can bring you back.”

“I know, Pif, but you know what I say; The dead must stay dead...”

“...And only live in our memories.” Paris finished. Then she glanced to the open book. “Or in self-writing books that magic up their contents once a year.”

Both shared a laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that’ll be it for Paperback Memorial.
> 
> The remainder of the episode will be summarized next time as this has already become the longest chapter by about 1000 words or so.
> 
> Anyway, please leave a review, I love to hear what you think, and I’d really like to see your guesses as to all the mysteries I presented in this video, especially Paris’ conversation with whoever that person was.
> 
> Hild fic will hopefully come soon, have a good one, and until next time...
> 
> *Disappears, leaving the words: ‘Sayonara Suckers!’ behind*


	9. Names to Faces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s for more Calamitas.
> 
> Get your butts ready.

_ SpellSlinger _

Paris rounded a corner, before swiftly ducking down an alleyway in Bonesborough. An ensemble of heavy footsteps approached before the stocky forms of Conformatorium guards came into view.

“I think she went this way!” a guard yelled, pointing further down the street.

“No, she went that way!” Another guard argued.

“We came from that way Joe; how could she have passed us?!”

“Well, she could of.”

Paris, having removed her mask and cloak stepped out of the alleyway, not an eye batted in her direction as the guards continued to argue which way she had gone.

Putting on a glammer charm earing, Paris smirked at another plan going off without a hitch.

_ SpellSlinger _

It had been a few days since Paris and Luz had visited the Library with the twins. Apparently, whilst Paris was... elsewhere, Amity had shown up not long after they had found her hideaway. Getting the wrong Idea, she yelled at the twins to leave whilst Luz tried to apologize.

Before getting attacked by a vandalized book, of course.

Paris only came in at the last moment, but it seemed that her faith in Luz was well put, as the younger human used one of the crono-reset glyphs she had given the twins on the monster’s book to save both herself and Amity.

Paris Pulled out the Azura book she had borrowed from Amity, and, putting on her glasses, double-checked she had stolen the correct item. Finding it was right, she put both the book and glasses back into her satchel and headed to Eda’s ‘Human Collectables’ Stand.

_ SpellSlinger _

“What... am I looking at?” Paris asked with a flat face as she stared at the glowing sign above Eda’s stand.

“Oh hi Paris! Like the sign I made?” Luz greeted, not wavering from her usually ecstatic self.

“Sign? What do you...” Eda asked confused, before looking up at the overly-flashy sign that Luz had made. “LUZ!”

“Did I spell something wrong, or did I spell something right?” Luz asked suavely as Eda ripped the sign down.

“Stop that.” Eda jotted a finger at Luz. “You may be forgetting something, Luz. I'm kinda... on the run! Remember?” Eda pulled up one of her wanted posters. “Every guard in town would be at my doorstep if I had my name in lights!”

“Isn’t Paris on the run too?” Luz asked as she noticed Paris walking up next to her.

“Yes, except I have a disguise to hide my true identity, this,” Paris gestured to the sign, “is the opposite of a disguise.”

“Well, I don't see anyone right now. Maybe you're just being paranoid.” Luz asked. “You're a powerful witch. Why hide when you can ‘poof’ all your problems away with magic?”

“Luz...” Paris rubbed the bridge of her nose. “That’s not how problems work.”

“Come on, Paris, what does Luz know about problems anyway?” King piped up “All she has is dumb teen drama! She doesn't understand how hard some of us have it.”

“You're pampered all day like a dang baby. How hard is that life?” Eda asked.

“Well, I don't know if you realized, but I'm not a baby!” King ranted.

“Then why are you screaming like one?” Luz asked, smirking.

“My life is a living nightmare!”

“Guys, can you please just calm down, and agree that each of you has your own problems before Eda suggests... the thing,” Paris asked.

“The thing?” Eda asked with a confused look before realization washed over her. “Oh right! The thing!”

Paris deadpanned. “I only blame myself.”

“What’s, ‘the thing’?” Luz asked.

“There's only one thing to do when friends can't see eye to eye. Know what that is?!”

“Hug until we pass out?!” Luz grabbed King into a hug.

“FIGHT TO THE DEATH!” King waved his fist.

“Both of those, are horrible answers.” Paris facepalmed.

“Nope!” Eda said, leaning closer, “Body Swap™!”

King and Luz looked at one another.

“...You sure you don’t shoot venom?”

_ SpellSlinger _

“Ah, I love a good Body Swap™!” Eda sighed happily. “It’s like demonic possession with the ones you love.”

“We’re doing that? That’s possible here?!” Luz questioned excitedly. “It’s just Like my favourite early 2000s movie, Freaky Fraturday!”

“Luz, to correct you’re earlier question, you guys are doing that,” Paris said. “Body Swaps™ and I do not mix well.” She added with a shiver.

“...Okay then. But now that I think about it maybe we should consider this for a...”

“Body Swap™!” Eda interrupted, twirling her staff above the three of them as Paris stood to the side.

“Oooh!” Luz awed, forgetting what she was just saying as a wave of light fell down over them, sending smoke everywhere. “Did it work? I need a mirror!” Eda’s voice exclaimed as Paris watched her run straight into a mirror. “Found one...”

“So I'm guessing Luz is Eda then...” Paris muttered.

“Oh, my gosh. It worked! I'm so old... and pointy!” Luz smooshed Eda’s face before her own body walked up next to her. “Hot dog! It’s me!” She then gasped.

“Yeah, it is. I'm the human now. Bow before my massive, meaty hands!” Luz’s body announced.

“And King is Luz, meaning...” Paris looked to the remaining smoke that was dispersing.

“How do I look?” King’s body asked, surprisingly having long eyelashes.

“I've got some very confusing emotions right now,” King stated.

“All right, here's the deal,” Eda made King’s body step forward. “Whoever can prove their new body has the easiest life gets out of house cleaning duty. And you know what that means.”

All three shuddered at the thought.

“Okay, today has been long enough for me without all...” Paris waved her hands at the three others, “this. So I'm just going to be using one of the greatest spells of all.” Paris sat down in a chair and took out a glyph.

“Ooh! What’s that?” Luz asked, intrigued.

“Sleep,” Paris answered as she slapped the glyph on her forehead, falling unconscious immediately as the glyph disintegrated.

“...Well if you need me, I'll be getting pampered on a vacation fit for a king.” Eda laughed as she left.

“MY LIFE IS NOT A JOKE!” King shook a fist after her before looking at Luz. “But yours is! Bap!” He quickly booped Eda’s body’s nose before scampering away.

“Heh, those two are clueless. I have this in the bag...” Luz said as she absent-mindedly made a spell circle that blasted a stream of energy, knocking her over.

_ SpellSlinger _

“Thank you! Come again!” Luz said as she waved away another customer from her magic-induced sale spree. “Man, I am on fire, Paris!” Luz said to the still unconscious human. “Yeah, that’s right, Luz the _witch_ is doing great!” Luz continued despite the lack of response. “There's a little something for everyone. Take it from me, Eda, the Boiling Isles' gift to magic!”

“Is that right? You're the famous Eda the owl lady?” A suddenly appeared cloaked figure asked.

“That depends. Are you a fan... of magic?” Luz asked, taking her top hat off and pulling out a bouquet of sentient flowers.

“No, but I am a fan of...” The cloak fell away to reveal a Conformatorium guard, “the law.”

“Wuh-oh.” Luz gulped.

“We're finally able to catch you in the act. All thanks to this little light show of yours.” A second guard gestured to the brightly illuminated stand as the first slapped shackles onto Luz left arm.

“Gentlemen, whaddya say we forget this whole thing ever happened? Amnesia spell!” Luz made a spell circle that conjured a giant dummy in the second guard’s mouth. “Haven't quite got the hang of this yet... Paris Wake up!” Luz shot a beam of magic at Paris.

“Reflect...” Paris murmured in her sleep as she held up a glyph that created a barrier that, did indeed, reflect the beam.

“Attacking an innocent? We’ll have to take her in for questioning too.” The first guard said as the second continued to suck on the dummy.

Luz gulped.

_ SpellSlinger _

“Look, guys, you got the wrong Eda.” Luz tried to tell the guards that were watching her whilst still trapped inside the interrogation room they had put her and the still snoozing Paris.

“Hello, Edalyn.” A new voice said as two people entered the room. Luz rotated her head to see who had spoken only to watch as Eda’s sister sat down at the table Luz was already sitting at.

With Calamatis flanking her, arms crossed.

“U-uh, f-finally a-a familiar face!” Luz stammered as she began sweating a river, trying to keep her gaze away from Calamatis. “You're Eda's sister, right? Is it Libby? No. Limby...”

 _Lilith_ , blinked slowly, her face remaining impassive. “Your show of affection is touching. Do you know why you're here?”

“Well, as I was telling the guard, this is just a classic Freaky Fraturday mix‐up.” Luz attempted to explain. Calamatis turned her head away as she barked out a cough, which Luz raised an eyebrow at.

“Sister, the charges against you are long and many. Operating a stand without a permit, owning a hocus without a pocus...”

“Yeah, that list goes on for a while...” Luz gave a weak smile.

“And, of course, being associated with that rat, the SpellSlinger,” Calamatis growled.

Luz blinked as her eyes darted to Paris in slight confusion.

“And what is this person doing here?” Calamatis shouted at one of the guards.

“Uh, um, she was attacked by the Owl Lady, so, we had to take her in as a witness.” The guard answered weakly.

Calamatis gave a blank stare. “Eagh, fine. At least wake her up, you idiots.”

The guard nodded before going over to Paris and slapping the back of her head.

“OW! Luz what are you...” Paris began before she realised 2 things. 1: it wasn’t Luz, and 2: she was in an interrogation room. She whipped around to Luz, an expression of fury blossoming on her face. “ **LUZ...** ” She growled.

“Eheheh... I can explain?” Luz shrugged, resuming her sweating under Paris’ gaze.

“Well, I hope... you... do...” Paris stopped as she saw Calamatis. “Callie...” she whispered.

“Eh-hem.” Lilith cleared her throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “Look, we’re getting off track here. Eda, these charges are serious. There's no more running away now.”

“Yaga damn it, Luz...” Paris muttered as she groaned.

“I know. I can't just ‘poof’ my problems away.” Luz averted her gaze, speaking more to Paris than Lilith.

“But we can!” Lilith’s expression brightened. “You getting caught was clearly a cry for help. Join the Emperor's Coven, like we dreamed about when we were girls.”

“Eda wanted to join the Emperor’s Coven?” Luz gasped in surprise.

“Okay, Lilith, I only agreed to come to get information on my old associate.” Calamatis interrupted. Then she pulled her hood back. Paris’s blood ran cold and Luz gaped in shock.

“So,” Calamatis began, tucking strands of silver hair behind rounded ears, “What. Do. You. Know.” She leaned uncomfortably close to Luz.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Luz drew out, still not over what she was seeing.

“Welp. I’ve had enough.”

Everyone turned to see that Paris had taken out a large, A3 sized paper out of her bag and affixed it to the wall, a glyph sitting idle on top of it.

“Time to go, _Luz_.” She declared, slapping a hand over the glyph, causing it to glow like molten rock before shattering the wall in an explosion, sending smoke everywhere.

_ SpellSlinger _

“Well, that was horrible,” Paris commented, slamming open the door to the Owl House, leading everyone back in.

“Agreed.” Everybody else concurred in unison as they all fell back on the couch with a large, exhausted sigh.

“Hey, Paris, I have to ask something,” Luz asked, now back in her regular body.

“Ugh, what now, Luz?” Paris groaned, not even mustering the energy to look at her fellow human.

“Why didn’t Calamatis Recognise you?”

The question proceeded to hang in the air heavily when Paris did not answer.

“Hey, yeah,” Eda piped up, “Every time Ol’ Red and Angry sees you out of costume, she has no clue who you are.”

Paris sat up straight, still not looking at her friends.

“Well, I guess that’s an easy answer.” Paris frowned sadly. “I erased her memory of me. And cursed her to never remember me.”

Luz gasped.

Paris continued. “I thought, I just thought, that if she _forgot_ about _me_ , she may be happier. But I was wrong. Whilst she did forget about _me_ , she didn’t forget the anger she felt for me, and that, that drove her to hunt what she remembered hating, my masked persona, the SpellSlinger.”

Nobody spoke after that. Drifting back into silence.

_ SpellSlinger _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. That was an Adventure Time reference.  
> Don't forget to comment! I Love ready what you think, and your theories!


	10. Where She Was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in one week?! What is this madness?!
> 
> I never planned to do these more filler-ish episodes, as Paris didn’t really seem to fit into any of the three because I couldn’t find a reason for her to be there.
> 
> But instead of just skipping over them completely, I decided to write something and give that to you instead.
> 
> Enjooy~

When Hooty opened the door to let Gus in, Luz was honestly hoping for it to be someone else. Not that she didn’t like Gus, don’t get her wrong, he was one of her best friends, but she was wanting it to be Paris.

Ever since the Body Swap™ fiasco, Paris had disappeared without so much as a goodbye, and Luz hadn’t seen her in days.

On one hand, Luz was beginning to regret asking about Calamatis, fearing it may have been the reason her human mentor ran away. On the other hand, she still had so many questions! Like, Calamatis is human?! Or, why does she Hat Paris?

But above all else, she was worried about Paris. She was the only person on the isles Luz could _really_ talk to, in a way that she felt she was being understood.

Putting her thoughts aside, she turned her attention to Gus.

“Hey, Gus! What’s up?”

_ SpellSlinger _

“Yes! Goooo, Hexside!” Luz cheered, waving pom-poms and doing the splits. An expression of uncomforted flashed across her face. “ _Welp_! I never did that before.” She winced. Looking around, she only saw Willow and Gus. “Uhh, where is everyone?”

Looking up just in time, Luz watched as the bus flew away, leaving her and her friends behind.

“Oh, no! Come back!” Luz yelled at the bus before stopping to talk to Willow and Gus. “Why didn’t you guy’s board the bus?”

“We weren't going to leave you behind,” Willow answered, giving a smile.

“I was.” Gus corrected.

“Gus!” Willow scolded.

“Hey! But I didn’t! I wasn’t going to ditch Luz without telling her.” Gus defended himself. Luz drooped, remembering something. Her friends both noticed this.

“Is Paris still gone?” Willow asked. Luz nodded.

“Man, it’s been like a week now! Where did she even go?” Gus pondered.

“She never told me...” luz looked away sadly.

“Hey, cheer up. She’s the Spellslinger! Nothing’s going to take her down!” Willow reminded, cheering Luz up.

“Yeah. Yeah! Paris is fine! And I just thought of a way to get us to the game quick!”

_ SpellSlinger _

Luz wandered through the book fair, King riding along in her hoodie.

“This book fair's got everything! A zine-making workshop, meet and greets, and- what's that? *gasp* writing competition!? I've always wanted to be a writer!”

“Writer? What? I thought you wanted to be a witch?” King asked.

“Of course I want to be a witch, but where I'm from that's kinda... impossible. So, my runner up dream was to be a writer. I've had this about the author picture since I was seven years old.” Luz pulled out a picture of her younger self, showing her in a purple sweater with pink dolphins, and a smug look on her face. “I know my good angle,” Luz said as she put the picture away.

“Man, Paris would love this place,” King said, glancing back around the fair. “She’s always got her nose in books.”

Well, that put a dampener on the mood.

“Yeah, Paris...”

King took a look at Luz and rolled his eyes. “Oh come on! You’ve been sulking about Paris for the past one and a half weeks! She’s fine! This isn’t the first time she’s done this.”

“Really?” Luz asked hopefully.

“Yeah! Paris’ll be back before you know it!”

“Well okay then. On another note, I’m gonna enter the competition!

_ SpellSlinger _

** With Paris: **

Paris lay slumped on a couch, any semblance of her regular clothing gone and replaced with ill-fitting pyjamas. Staring at the wooden, she allowed her mind to fog over and drift her thoughts into nothingness.

“You can’t stick around here forever, Pif.”

Paris sat up and looked at the voice’s owner. It was a woman, most likely in their late 20s, who looked remarkably similar to Paris, but with a slimmer face, stockier body, and sides of head shaven.

“Yeah, but I want to do it right now though, Nof.” Paris replied to her big sister.

“But you shouldn’t”

“But I am.”

“But you shouldn’t”

“But I am.”

“But you...” Nof stopped when Paris shot a glare that said ‘Not in the mood’ very clearly. “Heh, okay, okay. But really Pif, you can’t keep running from these things. Sure, not everyone is going to be your insanely powerful family, but that’s not a reason to stop letting people in. Some things are worth it, Pif.”

“Ughhhhh, I hate it when you’re right.”

“Well you must hate pretty often then, since I'm always right.” Nof chuckled, earning her a pillow to the face. Laughing it off, Nof tossed a bag to Pairs, who caught it. Inside was all her gear she had put in her room when arriving home.

“Thanks, Nof.”

“Ahh, don’t mention it. I’ll the Nyf and the boys you said hi.”

And with a wave goodbye, Paris headed out the door.

...

“Ah! I'm still in my pyjamas!”

_ SpellSlinger _

Properly dressed, Paris stared at the door to the Owl house (after smacking a sleep spell on Hooty, of course), contemplating what she should say.

‘Oh, hey Luz, I ran away because I was scared that something would happen to you, or worse, you’d turn out like me.’

No, too blunt.

‘Don’t worry about it, it wasn’t like I wanted to disappear forever and give up on all my hopes and dreams!’

No, too depressing.

Whatever thought Paris was going to have next disappeared as the door to the Owl house swung open to reveal a Luz wrapped in...

“Wait is that my coat?” Paris said, her brain not thinking before the words came out.

As soon as the words had left Paris’ mouth, Luz’s face lit up like Christmas lights.

“PARIS!” Luz screamed as she hug-tackled the ruby-haired teen.

“Lu- OOF!” Paris grunted as she was barrelled over by the Spanish girl.

“I’m so happy you’re okay!” Luz said as she buried her face into Paris’ chest and hugged her tighter.

Getting over her shock, Paris allowed herself to smile warmly. “Of course I’m okay, Luz. I just needed some time to clear my head is all.”

“Aww, but so much happened whilst you were gone! Like, I’m gonna go to Hexside now, and, and, I met the bat queen again whilst trying to find Owlbert, and...”

Luz continued to rant for the next four minutes, but Paris barely heard a word, instead listening to her sister's voice echoing in her mind.

_“...Some things are worth it, Pif.”_

Paris smiled.

‘Yeah,’ She thought, watching Luz’s cheerful and endearing face, ‘ I guess they are...’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t forget to fav and comment!


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